After Donald Trump won the US presidency, some coverage claimed fake news shared on Facebook helped tip the result. Facebook had already fired human trending editors and swapped in an algorithm after bias claims, which left the product more open to people gaming distribution.
Actors who learned the rules pushed sensational false stories through their own networks and reached more people. A group in Macedonia was found packaging US election lies for ad revenue.
Claims like “the Pope endorsed Trump”
Some posts claimed an FBI official probing Hillary Clinton’s emails was found dead, or that the Pope had endorsed Trump. False, yet shared daily and seen by millions. Some argued that kind of noise shaped views and helped a candidate trailing in late polls.
https://twitter.com/riptari/status/796491164283244544
Mark Zuckerberg said many people were shocked by the outcome, but blaming it on “a few fake news” posts on Facebook showed a lack of empathy. He argued the share of fake news in news feeds was tiny and that voters lean on life experience more than what they saw on Facebook.
Mark Zuckerberg says fake news "surely had no impact" on election.
— Will Oremus (@WillOremus) November 11, 2016
Facebook as a filter
Plenty of people disagree. A common view is that Facebook shows users content that matches their views and can radicalize them. Thin diversity in the feed can lock people into one lane. Zuckerberg said the company tries to diversify the feed and surfaces other viewpoints, though some users block those posts.
VP Adam Mosseri admitted they need to act on fake news but did not spell out a new system. For now, he said, there is no automatic detector; suspicious items are reviewed from user reports and fakes are taken down.
