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Facebook Chooses To Demote Fake News Instead of Remove It (bbc.co.uk)
Facebook says it will not remove fake news from its platform because it does not violate its community standards. According to the BBC, Facebook said publishers often had "very different points of view" and removing fabricated posts would be "contrary to the basic principles of free speech." Instead, it is choosing to demote posts in the news feed that it deems to be fake news. From the report: Facebook has been scrutinized for its role in spreading fake news after evidence emerged that Russia tried to influence U.S. voters using the social network. On Wednesday, the company held an event in New York where it sought to convince journalists it was tackling the problem. The company said it would not remove fake news that did not break its rules but would down-rank content that had been marked as false. "We allow people to post it as a form of expression, but we're not going to show it at the top of News Feed," a spokeswoman told CNN.
That's really all they can do. Let's face facts - people who get their actual news from Facebook are idiots. People who can't be bothered to fact check or even do the slightest amount of verification are idiots. And the vast vast majority of internet users are.... idiots. They'll grab the first thing they see that they agree with and use it as their evidence to support to their argument. Whether it's from politifact, snopes, or stormfront.
Facebook is an online chat. That's it. People who use it to gather factual data... there's not much we can do about it. *shrug*.