Facebook on its Fake News Problem: 'There's So Much More We Need To Do' (theverge.com)

In the aftermath of election, news outlets are counting Facebook as one of the major reasons that drove Trump to victory. NYMag, for instance, had an essay Wednesday titled "Donald Trump Won Because of Facebook", in which it has documented several instances where lies were peddled as fact on Facebook's watch. The social juggernaut, which has over 1.6 billion people checking the website every month, has been spotted running fake stories on its platform numerous times over the past few months, something that President Barack Obama remarked about recently. This is critical because over 60 percent people in the United States consume their news on social media. When asked if Facebook had anything to say about its influence in Trump's victory, the company said:We take misinformation on Facebook very seriously. We value authentic communication, and hear consistently from those who use Facebook that they prefer not to see misinformation. In Newsfeed we use various signals based on community feedback to determine which posts are likely to contain inaccurate information, and reduce their distribution. In Trending we look at a variety of signals to help make sure the topics being shown are reflective of real-world events, and take additional steps to prevent false or misleading content from appearing. Despite these efforts we understand there's so much more we need to do, and that is why it's important that we keep improving our ability to detect misinformation. We're committed to continuing to work on this issue and improve the experiences on our platform.

Comments

Don't use Facebook

[lgw]

I have a simple and 100% effective strategy for avoiding fake news on Facebook. I think it's a fairly common strategy for Slashdotters.

Re:Don't use Facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

Agree.

Also it wouldn't hurt to have much greater emphasis on critical thinking skills in public education. That's hard to do though, because some people really hate it and seem to have a deficiency there, and many parents hate it when their kids start asking really trenchant questions about their religious beliefs.

Re:Don't use Facebook

[NatasRevol]

Well, until Facebook goes back to less than 1 billion monthly users, your idea sucks for not impacting American politics.

Re:Don't use Facebook

[lgw]

Well, until Facebook goes back to less than 1 billion monthly users, your idea sucks for not impacting American politics.

It's not just Facebook.

US elections were very different before TV. When voter made a decision based on mostly written information and the candidates actual policy positions, plus maybe seeing a candidate once address a crowd, elections weren't about sound bites and hot takes. But the Nixon-Kennedy debate marked the beginning of a new era.

This way the same sort of "state change in voting", 56 years later. Trump was a master at getting free press in a world of 24-hour news coverage and social media and one-liners and tweets. Even less information being looked at than the TV era. Trump demonstrated that "any press is good press" as he rode the wave of "talking heads just can't stop talking about how bad he is" to victory. That's the new era - 140-character attention spans.

The content hasn't mattered much for 56 years, and matters less now. People aren't persuaded by "fake news", they've already decided based on the world around them, and grab any quote that looks good to defend that position. Clearly the media had very little actual influence this election. I doubt social media did either - people decide first, based on the real world ("it's the economy, stupid"), then talk about it on social media.

Re:Don't use Facebook

[lgw]

Populism never leads to responsible government or prosperity.

It's never pretty when the demos seizes the kratos. But it's worth remembering that democracy is primarily a circuit breaker. When the government ignores the concerns of the people too long, something ugly will certainly happen. I'll take Trump over Madam Guillotine any day.

Re:Don't use Facebook

[Sir_Eptishous]

You beat me to it.
FB is a wasteland of contrived "keeping up with the joneses", people trying to make their lives look larger-than-life, weirdo political rants, cat pictures, endless posts about nothing or anything, and most importantly, almost nothing of any substantive value.
Actually, no, the worst part about FB is the time wasted scrolling through it...

Re:Don't use Facebook

[gnick]

I think it's a fairly common strategy for Slashdotters.

I doubt that's true. My guess is that the abstainers are just a very vocal minority. Like how people without TV love periodically announcing that they don't have TV and those of us that haven't cut the cable just keep our yaps shut.

Re:Don't use Facebook

[Mashiki]

trump was the perfect candidate for the facebook masses

You know, it wasn't Trump or the media supporting Trump that turned around and said shit like "Looking at wikileaks is illegal." That was CNN, there was also similar views being pushed in a very vague way NBC, ABC, and CBS. Those networks were all supporting Clinton, so were newspapers like WAPO, USA Today, Boston Globe, NY Times. All with a variety of messages like "well those leaks are because RUSSIA" now believe what we're telling you! Oddly it was organizations facebook and twitter as well, that was removing or blocking content and/or stopping trending data that hurt the DNC.

Strange how that all seemed to work in Hillary's favor right?

WE FAILED!!

[CajunArson]

Commit Sepuku in your hoodie Zuckerberg.

The platform that you built to limit the flow of information to the population and as a way to make advertising revenue for yourself and Hillary backfired on you.

Incidentally, Trump's expenditures per vote were about half of Hillary's.
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/09...

That's a story that Slashdot doesn't want to cover since they still want to paint this as Trump "buying" the election.

Re:WE FAILED!!

[bfpierce]

Wait, there's stories on slashdot saying Trump 'bought' the election? Did I miss something, or did you just post false tin foil hat bullshit in an article about false fucking news stories.

Re:WE FAILED!!

[sinij]

This just in: "Trump bought the election".

Here, now there is.

It's not just Facebook

[zifnabxar]

This is a problem with any social media or news aggregation site that allows for unchecked echo chambers. It's an issue for people of all politics and will crop up anywhere someone can consume media and news unchecked. "Fixing" this on Facebook will only push it elsewhere. Can we fix human nature? Should we?

Re:It's not just Facebook

[MightyMartian]

I've seen news outlets do that my entire life. You'll always see the front page story "Local soccer coach accused of child molestation!", but the story six months later that all charges were dropped is buried somewhere on page four below a story about how a Suffolk County family's cat had nine conjoined kittens.

Re:It's not just Facebook

[Hognoxious]

6 across (5,7) - Not a kiddly diddler.

Great idea!

[Orgasmatron]

Congratulations to Facebook for stepping up against the spreaders of fake news and kicking CNN, (MS)NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS, BBC and Fox off their platform! Oh, and all of the polling organizations that got everything 100% wrong for the last 18 months. Very happy to see them go too.

Enjoy your CSPAN and Breitbart News, facebook users.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[NatasRevol]

Are you aware that saying 'why' something happened isn't the same as blaming someone else for that 'why'?

Let me tell you why this is a non-issue

[chispito]

If Facebook were to censor these stories, people who fall for them would assume Facebook was controlled by the "liberal media" and go elsewhere for their news. It would not keep the stories from spreading virally.

Also, I like the implication that Trump won due to FUD but the Democratic FUD is of no concern--like the incredibly stupid story posted right here about Trump's server secretly communicating with a Russian bank.

It was so obviously a non-story... but read through the comments here and you'll see how eager people were to lap it up. (I linked Snopes as it contains a variety of credible sources debunking the article).

Re:Let me tell you why this is a non-issue

[ScentCone]

Also, I like the implication that Trump won due to FUD but the Democratic FUD is of no concern

Yes. My own FB feed is curated a bit by my un-follows and follows, and no doubt skews a bit towards the conservative/libertarian bent - though I am FB friends with at least as many dyed-in-the-wool liberals who post to FB (or memegurgitate) about as often as they breathe. So while I saw no small number of silly re-posts and likes/shares of breathless fake/shallow news meant to draw in clicks from conservative types, I saw FAR more FUD-ish content from liberals trying to actually shame/change minds through the use of preposterously overblown fear mongering and outright lies.

So, yes: fake news on FB is a problem, or at least a significant annoyance. But the notion that somehow this is limited to stuff from and aimed at right-leaning people in some proportion that, compared to its lefty counterparts, cost Hillary Clinton the election... I call bullshit. The biggest purveyors and apparent consumers of that crap that I saw were outspoken Clinton supporters. So even if I'm wrong by a lot and the amount of it was roughly equal, that DOES NOT explain away the DNC/Clinton-Machine's huge loss. This is just another example of liberals - especially in the media - refusing to look in the mirror and understand that they're not nearly as clever and persuasive as they think they are, and that a whole lot of other people were just sick to death of the condescension, the holier-than-thou presumption of a Clinton coronation, and the deploying of finger-wagging celebrities telling people how to think.

And for those who are mystified that yelling at their non-racist, non-homophic, non-misogynistic friends about how racist, homophobic, and misogynistic they are didn't somehow make them vote for Hillary or feel apologetic following the election: maybe it's time to rethink what you were sure would get people to see things your way.

Re:Let me tell you why this is a non-issue

[meta-monkey]

And for those who are mystified that yelling at their non-racist, non-homophic, non-misogynistic friends about how racist, homophobic, and misogynistic they are didn't somehow make them vote for Hillary or feel apologetic following the election: maybe it's time to rethink what you were sure would get people to see things your way.

I so close to voting for Hillary. If only someone had called Trump Hitler just two or three hundred more times I would have been right there.

Re:Let me tell you why this is a non-issue

[meta-monkey]

The system is rigged. We read the DNC leaks. They rigged the primary against Bernie, the debates are rigged, the news coverage is propaganda, this article is about how clearly the problem is they haven't rigged social media enough for the establishment. Oh and the congressional districts are gerrymandered by the Republicans. This is also a form of rigging.

If you're just talking about voting machines and such, there's analysis going into that right now, so we'll see. There are certain precincts of PA and Ohio where it looks like they were flipping votes, but they didn't do it enough to effect the outcome. Nobody cares much about this kind of stuff after your team wins though.

I would also not be shocked if some of the more blatantly fraudulent plans were stopped because of the spotlight O'Keefe and Trump shined on it. Foval and Creamer were smoked out and knew they were being watched, so that took out their men on the ground who would have actually been doing the dirty work.

Beating the rigged system doesn't mean the system isn't rigged.

Re:Let me tell you why this is a non-issue

[chispito]

If you voted for Trump, no matter what the reason, no matter what you believe, you have condoned racism, bigotry, misogyny, and homophobia making you no better then those people.

I think you may have been trolled by the next President. The media sure were.

Re:Let me tell you why this is a non-issue

[ScentCone]

he ran on racism, bigotry, misogyny, and homophobia. That is what you voted for. That is what you support. That is what you are.

And your swallowing of that liberal meme, hook line and sinker, and believing it to be true, is exactly why the Democrats lost the White House and failed to get either house of congress. Because telling people who didn't want to see the Clinton family once again having the sort of power and influence selling access they so desperately craved that they're racists for thinking so, when you know that's not true, shows you to be EXACTLY the sort of lying, hypocritical, disingenuous phony that millions of people saw right through this time around, and were sick enough of to repudiate.

If you really cared about misogyny, why weren't you railing about Hillary Clinton's career-long defense of her sexual predator of a husband and her own actual hiring of people to go out and smear his rape victims' reputations? If you really cared about homophobia, why weren't you noting the fact that Trump was happily applauding gay marriage a decade ago while Hillary Clinton was still insisting that the government should prevent it? I know ... because you're a flaming hypocrite, that's why. You're probably also one of those people who's pretending to be too dim to understand that "illegal" isn't a race.

Re:Let me tell you why this is a non-issue

[Solandri]

Oh and the congressional districts are gerrymandered by the Republicans. This is also a form of rigging.

I used to care about this back in the 1980s. Only back then it was the Democrats who gerrymandered the districts in their favor to control the House for 40 years. I admit a slight political bias (I tend to vote conservative). But it was mostly the principle of the thing - gerrymandering is bad regardless of your political beliefs since it manipulates that essential link between voter and representative.

In the 1990 election in California, a fix for this came up as a ballot initiative. It simply required a 2/3 majority vote of the legislature for redrawn districts to be approved, thus preventing a 50%+1 majority from leveraging their slim advantage into a bigger one in future elections. I helped spread the word about it, the problem it tried to solve, why it was good for everyone. I was delighted that once I explained the problem and how this fixed it, even diehard liberals grudgingly agreed it was the right thing to do and said they would vote for it. Early polls showed it passing.

That's when two groups I had up til then respected (if not always agreed with) stepped in. A bunch of environmental groups led by the Sierra Club and the National Organization for Women realized Prop 118, regardless of how fair it was, would reduce the number of legislators sympathetic to their cause in both the State and Federal government. They flooded TV and radio with ads telling people it was bad and to vote against it, without even explaining what it was or how it was bad. It ended up losing by a 2:1 margin.

The Republicans took the time to figure out how to undo the Democrat gerrymandering. First they worked on winning the governorships so they could veto the gerrymandered redistricting. That usually kicked the matter into the courts, who usually took it upon themselves to redraw the districts (since the had to be redrawn to reflect population shifts, and the legislature/governor were deadlocked). Which allowed more Republicans (or rather, the correct number of Republicans) to win office as state legislators. Which gave them more control over future redistricting. Which combined with the governorship allowed them to eventually gerrymander things in their favor.

I suppose I should still be concerned about this on principle. But the whole thing scarred my young, optimistic self and my belief that people are inherently good and fair, and will make the right decision if they're properly informed. I tried to help fix gerrymandering for all people, only to see my hard work shot down by unrpincipled groups who were only interested in their own benefit regardless of how unfair it was. Screw them. The shoe's on the other foot now. They made their bed. They can lie in it. If another ballot initiative comes up which makes gerrymandering harder, yeah I'll vote for it. But I'm not going to put additional effort into helping people out of a gerrymandered hole they put themselves into.

They want a thicker filter bubble next time.

[Xenographic]

The real question is who controls that truth meter and who they work with. [1]

Are they going to ban lies like this one from CNN? And yes, it is a clear lie.

Anyhow, it's clear they haven't learned anything whatsoever from this election, so you have 8 years of Trump to look forward to unless they figure it out.

[1] Refer to this old comment if you don't like reading raw HTML and for more context. It's an email thread of the DNC collaborating with Politifact.

Re:They want a thicker filter bubble next time.

[Humbubba]

Ugh boy. Here goes: Reinforcing the belief in fake or real stories is what makes social media social, and often fake stories reinforce social bonds more so than real stories do. Something doesn't have to be "True" to have "truthiness." Social acceptance of stories as true or false demonstrate the validity mechanisms that are part of reciprocal social reinforcement. Here, meaning is embedded into abstract and coded stories, slogans and gossip, which aligns one to and bestows identity with the group.

Re:The problem is not Facebook

[nospam007]

"The problem is that there are lots of stupid people."

And they are all on Facebook, go figure.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[hey!]

Saying "Trump lost because of misinformed voters" "Trump won because EVERYONE who voted for him was misinformed".

Trump actually lost the popular vote; his electoral victory came down to any two of three states where his margin of victory was 1% or less. This means it takes only a small number of people switching their vote because of misinformation to throw an election one way or the other.

As few as 131607 vote switches could have swung the result. -- that was out of 14159807 votes cast in those two states, or about 0.9% of votes cast in those states.

I agree that most people who voted for Trump voted because they liked him, not because of misinformation. But we're talking about a marginal effect with big consequences. Misinformation in close elections can be decisive, which is why people do it.

Do they lack mirrors or reflections?

[Xenographic]

It's hilarious to see the media who got this entire election wrong now trying to tell us whose fault it is.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[meta-monkey]

And what about on the Democratic side? My FaceBook feed is full of crying women who believe America just elected LITERALLY HITLER and that Trump is going to start deporting or murdering anyone who isn't a straight white male. Their level of delusion seems a little worse than your average Trump voter.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[hey!]

I have to say that I get a lot of liberal noise, but I haven't seen anyone claim that Trump is literally Hitler or is going to murder people. The closest is the story that Trump kept a book of Hitler speeches by his bed. I initially discounted that since the source was his ex-wife, but there turns out to be corroborating evidence. Still, I consider that meaningless in itself because I have all kinds of "bad books".

I judge Trump on what he actually says and does, and that's enough. Yes he is not "literally" Hitler, but if you study the careers of authoritarian leaders he fits right in. People should be concerned.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[jevvim]

And what about on the Democratic side? ... Their level of delusion seems a little worse than your average Trump voter.

Hammer, meet nail. It wasn't just the Trump side that was "misinformed" by Facebook; Clinton's supporters were equally in a bubble. "Fake" news did not impact only one side; it touched every single candidate. It was near propaganda levels, especially in the final week. Ad hominem was the normal response of the Clinton side; why rebut the argument when it's easier to attack the speaker. Straw man was the normal response of the Trump side; why respond to the actual argument when you can misrepresent it and have a slam-dunk rebuttal.

Maybe it's time for Facebook to realize that all their "algorithms" will be exploitable, and they should just go back to a perfect, unaltered timeline of everything a user is following. At least that way we can say it's the people choosing to be misinformed and not just a side-effect of an algorithmic choice.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[meta-monkey]

There have been dozens of articles about how Trump is just like Hitler from the media. When Trump won New Hampshire and HuffPo's front page was all caps screaming "NEW HAMPSHIRE GOES RACIST SEXIST XENOPHOBIC!!!!" I wondered what would happen if Trump wins. Will the people who believe this kind of shit snap out of it and realize the media is lying to them? People voting Trump in New Hampshire want the drugs coming from Mexico stopped because they can't treat their people's addiction problems when you can get $10 heroin on any street corner, not because they're RACIST SEXIST XENOPHOBIC. Or, will they continue to believe that America just elected Hitler, and that half of their friends and neighbors are secret Nazis who are going to hang all the gays and rape the women now? It appears to be the latter. You may not be this delusional, but holy shit a lot of people are. It's psychological abuse what the media did to these people.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[NatasRevol]

Here are some facts.

1. Trump received about the same number of votes as Romney did in 2012.
2. Hillary received about 10M fewer votes than Obama did in 2012.

Neither was a remotely good candidate.

But only one was 'great' at exposing every little flaw of the other candidate. Meanwhile, the other one stuck to the traditional politician script in a decidedly non-traditional election.

They both won their primaries because they were the best politicians, not the best options.
Trump won the election because he was the best politician, not the best option.

Both the DNC & the RNC need to go back to square one and start promoting their best candidates, not the best politicians. The best candidates will serve more of the whole of America than either one of these candidates ever would.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[bfpierce]

You idiots in New Hampshire think your Heroin is coming from Mexico? lol

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[Archangel Michael]

I have seen it. Mostly in the LGBT crowd.

TRANSLATION: We're all dumb now. It's your fault.

[WolfgangVL]

How about people stop being fucking morons and look a little closer at "the news". We used to absolutely LOVE disgracing our media when they spread bad info. Now we have opinion news, click-bait, and citizen journalists.

You won't believe how Batboy's all grown up love affair with Janet Jackson ended....
Orange clown runs for office and has THIS to say......
See HRC's hot new underwear...

Pointing out bad stories on social media gets you involved in whatever TOXIC topic it relates to, earns you name-calling, and general ass-hole-ry on response for all your "friends" to see. Those of us that know better just left. People really seem enjoy the dumb-shit-echo-chamber we left behind.
(the irony of post right?)

And now what, we are somehow surprised or something? This is exactly what we wanted. It's not on fb to censor bad news, its on us to not be fucking morons.

Is this REALLY not obvious?

Re:dont censor

[jellomizer]

Well one thing we learned about the election.
We were seeing all the polls showing Clinton had a near certain victory. And we assumed trump was lying when he said that his polls are showing something different. Unfortunately that raises the question how good are the sources to figure out truthfulness.

Now Trump could had been lying about his sources, and gotten lucky. However the fact that he was saying that he was winning and the media is lying about that and actually won. Does bring up questions, on the fact checkers and truthfulness.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[NatasRevol]

The closest Trump came was saying that he'd make the military commit war crimes. During a debate on national TV. Then reiterated it the next day when asked about it.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[avandesande]

He won because Hillary ignored the flyover states that Obama had swept previously. Enough with the silly theories.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[Sir_Eptishous]

"authoritarian leaders"... Leaders are by definition authoritarian, else they'd just be committee members.

what he actually says and does, and that's enough

To hint at dictatorial tendencies, I presume? Perhaps you could be more specific.

It appears you weren't paying attention to this election we just went through.
Did you ever watch Trump at his rallies?
Did you ever watch his interviews?
Did you watch the debates?

There are endless examples of his despicable behavior towards many different groups and individuals, but I guess you didn't see or acknowledge that.

Your question is hilarious, like when people ask quesitons on forums and they don't even know they themselves can look it up.
By asking your quesiton, you are making a weak attempt at being snarky.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[meta-monkey]

And I'm saying most of that is because the media painted him that way. Instead of repeating over and over and over again "TRUMP THINKS ALL MEXICANS ARE RAPISTS!!!!" they could have explained that 80% of the women and girls who cross the boarder illegally are raped during their crossing, and, as Trump said, "somebody's doing the raping."

Trump isn't Hitler. The media has made a bunch of hysterical women believe Trump is Hitler.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[hey!]

I agree that neither was a great candidate. But here's my theory: Trump is the first candidate ever to win by running a negative campaign -- against himself.

They were both candidates with enormous negative public perceptions. But Clinton had a lot of money. In a normal year she could have bought attention to start to shift perception, except that Trump's antics sucked all the oxygen out of the media space. And at a certain point the marginal cost of another revelation about Trump was nil.

Re:dont censor

[amicusNYCL]

The problem is that people think that polls are accurate, because they use terms like "sample size" and "margin of error" to give the illusion that they are scientific. They aren't scientific. A poll is asking a bunch of people what they think, and assuming that all of them tell the truth. Guess what? They don't all tell the truth. When Nate Silver was publishing his numbers he showed 12% of people saying they were "undecided", but for some reason the margin of error was not +/- 12. How many of those "undecided" people do you actually think had already made up their minds, and didn't want to tell anyone because they wanted to avoid how people would react to their choice? How many of those "undecided" people walked into the polling booth and chose an actual candidate? Those polls are going to say that Hillary has a lead, and that the margin of error is low, and that Trump has a 16% chance of winning, and none of those things are correct but since they list the sample size and bother to come up with a number for "margin of error" then people whose job it is to talk or write for companies that say they publish news (pardon me if I don't want to refer to those people as journalists) will say that all of the polls show that Hillary is in the lead, and this is what's going to happen, and here are the states where there is going to be a real contest, and no one has any idea what they're talking about. But it sounds good, until none of the things that people predicted actually happen.

The real stupid thing is that this same crap happened over and over during the primaries and all of the news talking people still acted like they knew what was going on at the end.

Re:dont censor

[Rakarra]

We were seeing all the polls showing Clinton had a near certain victory. And we assumed trump was lying when he said that his polls are showing something different. Unfortunately that raises the question how good are the sources to figure out truthfulness.

Now Trump could had been lying about his sources, and gotten lucky. However the fact that he was saying that he was winning and the media is lying about that and actually won. Does bring up questions, on the fact checkers and truthfulness.

Clinton actually gained roughly the amount of votes that were expected. But what happened is the overwhelming majority of "undecided" voters voted for Trump. What we all forgot about, but should never forget about, is The Bradley Effect. People didn't want to admit to a pollster that they were voting for Trump. It's a key example of Social Desirability Bias where respondents answer questions in a manner which will be viewed favorably by those around them.

Re:dont censor

[Rakarra]

No it doesn't. It says that the polls are using flawed means that don't end up being accurate. People have complained about the way polls are conducted being skewed for a long time now. Polls only measure people who agree to be measured. They only measure what people say, rather than what they do in privacy.

There was a pretty decent interview on NPR last weekend where the interviewer sat down the heads of a view polling agencies to discuss how polling works and the challenges involved in getting accurate polling. The fact of the matter is that each year it has been more difficult getting an accurate cross-sample of people. 30 years ago, it was far easier -- everyone had a public land-line. Everyone picked it up on a ring. No one had caller id. Now it's far more self-selected, and it's easier to get penned in to one demographic.

The last time I checked they still only polled people who had land lines.

No, they use cell phones now. I received a poll call on my cell phone this election, the first time in 15 years I had been randomly polled about anything.

Not why Trump won though

[guruevi]

There were various other stories doing the rounds. I don't have FB for personal use but I am working on software that curates feeds for businesses. Depending on your particular group of friends there were false H stories and false T stories, Trump did everything from rape a 13yo to being a secret Hillary shill, being in secret societies and cahoots with foreign governments and businesses etc.

The Clinton campaign came up with the Russians being behind Wikileaks and pretty much any activity in firewall logs (it was China during the Obama/Romney election cycle) as well as the various "things Trump said really means this", the females he supposedly molested etc

The media controlled this election cycle and lost... too bad for them.

Re:dont censor

[bickerdyke]

And you're even leaving out the probably largest reason why polls divert from actual results. For the sake of the argument, assume all your assumptions and correction factors would be spot on and you could predict the outcome perfectly.

Now publish your prediction:

What happens? People who were bound to vote for the leading candidate stay at home because they think their candidate won't need their votes anymore, but people who want to support the second place candidate (by polls) are activated to actually vote.

Publishing a poll has a huge effect on election results.