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.

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: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: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: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.