It took Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg just two days to change from strongly defending his network from claims that fake news on Facebook aided the rise of Donald Trump to saying Facebook will do more to tackle fake news. Zuckerberg continued to deny that Facebook had in any way aided Trump’s presidential election victory; however, there has been a fierce debate about whether the flood of fake news — much of it prejudicial to Hillary Clinton — could have swung the election to Trump.
Zuckerberg had said that the idea that fake news on Facebook influenced the election in any way was “pretty crazy”, but there is no denying that low-quality news stories during the campaign proliferated on Facebook. Stories abounded on the Internet that were misleading, sloppily reported, or in some cases totally made up. Some data has shown that fake stories were being far more widely shared on the platform than follow-up stories debunking the claims.
An enormous proportion of the most popular news on Facebook seems to have been fake, reaching millions — probably tens of millions — of voters. Stories that were later proved entirely false appeared on the timelines of a large number of users.
Chalk that up to a filter bubble. The news feed algorithm - basically a computer, not a human service - serves up whatever it thinks you and your friends want to believe and it certainly does not do any fact-checking. Those inclined to vote for Trump would only see stories that reflect their view of the world and the same applied to those of a liberal mindset who wanted Clinton. One could say that the same filtering has always applied. Liberal people tend to read liberal newspapers while conservatives get their views reflected back in what they read. But how credible or incredible is such news?
Most editors try to present at least some alternative views and make sure that the facts in any story stand up to scrutiny. Neither applies to Facebook. Facebook offers a powerful way of getting its message direct to the public unchallenged by the rigorous standards of correct journalism. Many articles do look legitimate, just as reputable as real ones. That clearly could have had an impact on how people think.
Identifying the truth is complicated. While some hoaxes can be completely debunked, a greater amount of content, including from mainstream sources, often gets the basic idea right but some details wrong or omitted. An even greater volume of stories express an opinion that many will disagree with even when factual.
Hoaxes are not limited to partisan views or to politics or the US. There are controversial issues in every country and the majority of countries do have Facebook. What the audience ends up seeing on Facebook is determined by who their friends are and what they share. As a result, people may see more fake material in their news feed.
For an increasing number of people, Facebook is becoming the primary source of news coverage. A total of 156 million Americans are Facebook members and two-thirds of them get news on the site. This means the influence of newspapers and the rest of the mainstream media may be as nothing compared with that of Facebook.
If Facebook or something similar had not existed, would Trump be going to the White House? It’s impossible to say. Zuckerberg said that more than 99 percent of content on Facebook is authentic and that only a very small amount is fake news and hoaxes, making it extremely unlikely hoaxes changed the outcome of the election in one direction or the other. But Trump made a ton of misleading statements for a presidential candidate. Yet he won. It was a great example of how people don’t necessarily make decisions based on facts but on what they read on Facebook.
