In the end, I'm no more sympathetic to Facebook here than usual, but I don't feel convinced by the account of the problem presented in this draft.

Attention- and behavior-collection systems value "content" bits according to how much attention and behavior they stimulate. This is as true of the ones run in the 20t century by William Randolph Hearst or Roy Howard as the ones run in the 21st century by Rupert Murdoch, Larry Paige, or Mark Zuckerberg. The Spanish-American war was started by "false news" that Mr Hearst intentionally fabricated. The Facebook news feed problem isn't the result of some failure on Mr Zuckerberg's part to embrace a historical morality well exemplified by Rupert Murdoch, after all.

The definition of "news" as "stuff Thomas Jefferson would want you to read if he were here and knew as much as Dean Baquet about current events" doesn't make any operational sense, even if we think we want it to. So we need to understand more completely both the "information ecology" we think we are losing---and why we think that---and the one we are gaining. That's impossible in 1,000 words of course. But it's important to try.

Fake-News Empire

-- By ArashMahboubi - 07 Dec 2016

Zuckerberg Strikes Again

“Mr. Zuckerberg has attained an unenviable record. He has done more harm to the human race than anybody else his age.” While I have been skeptical to accept his ascension to the absolute top of this list, Zuckerberg’s—and in turn Facebook’s—recent fake-news crisis has fueled detractors and weakened my position. At a time when American democracy is reeling into an uncertain phase, a premium must be placed upon accurate information. Society is becoming more divisive by the day, and Facebook’s contributions to these problems has made me lose the little shreds of respect I previously had for it. Facebook was not complacent being just a severe privacy threat “akin to the KGB”, so Facebook expanded into a “Fake-News Empire”.

Fake-News

The potential dangers posed by the Fake-News Empire have reached unprecedented levels. Traditionally, credible news sources with fact-checking editors dominated the news market. Readers could reasonably trust information disseminated by sources such as the New York Times. But, in an age where news can be spread instantaneously to millions of readers at the convenient click of a button, it is becoming tougher to tell which sites are trustworthy. Facebook wraps its news stories in the same skin, whether it’s from the New York Times or entirely fabricated. Facebook then forwards these packages to users without any fact-checking filter.

Leading up to election-day, fake-news engagement levels surpassed that of credible mainstream news. Paul-Horner—a leader in fake-news stories who uses Facebook as his primary medium—went on record to say “I think Donald Trump is in the White House because of me”. 17 of the 20 most popular fake election stories that were shared on Facebook were pro-Trump or anti-Clinton. Some of the most popular fake stories on Facebook included WikiLeaks? confirming Hillary sold weapons to ISIS, Hillary being disqualified from holding any Federal Office, a Trump protestor being paid $3,500 by Hillary’s campaign, and that Pope Francis endorsed Trump. These articles even fooled the likes of Eric, Donald Trump’s son, and Corey Lewandowski, his campaign manager at the time, into sharing these articles. It is quite incredulous Zuckerberg and Facebook turned a blind eye to the actions of people like Paul-Horner simply to generate more traffic, and in turn use that traffic to spy on users and generate revenue.

Facebook's Inadequate Response

“We’ve been working on this problem for a long time and we take this responsibility seriously”. Zuckerberg specifically highlighted Facebook’s methods being used to combat fake-news, including making it easier to report bad information, developing stronger fake-news detection, creating a warning system, and enlisting fact-checking organizations. Such measures represent a good start, but one that is not appropriate in magnitude or appreciative of the damage that has already been done. How genuine can Zuckerberg really be when he contradictorily stated that “the percentage of misinformation is relatively small” and defiantly retorted that the possibility that fake-news helped Trump win the election is a “pretty crazy idea”? If he believes fake-news does not influence people’s information about a candidate—which what people base their vote on—then it is doubtful he is genuinely embracing the task of fighting this problem. Facebook trades at a market cap of $337.4 billion, I am not naive enough to believe Zuckerberg cannot fix this problem very quickly if he wanted to. After all, what is his incentive to fix this problem if Facebook’s stock keeps rising while endless drones sign-up to his growing Fake-News Empire?

Optimal Solution

While Zuckerberg pretends there is not an ideal, efficient way to quickly fix this problem, I believe the most logical solution would be to enlist a third-party company to tackle the issue. The benefits include that Facebook couldn’t be accused of hidden agendas or biases and wouldn’t have to the be the “arbiters of truth”, a position that Zuckerberg opposes. In fact, it turns out that a solution is not that complicated. It took four college students all of 36 hours to develop a fix. These students built a Chrome browser plug-in that tags news links in Facebook feeds as substantiated or not substantiated by taking into account factors such as “the source’s credibility and cross-checking the content with other news stories”. If the news appears to be false, the plug-in will automatically link a summary of credible information on the topic. With the resources at Facebook’s disposal, it is nothing besides a lie for Zuckerberg to say that it will take time to develop a similar news checking algorithm to authenticate what is real and what is fake on Facebook.

Zuckerberg Makes the Wrong Choice Again

People don’t want the truth, they instead desire anything to reinforce their own beliefs. The moment beckons for a factual counterinsurgency, and Facebook has the resources to lead the charge. Zuckerberg can help repair his image—partially—by being on the right side of history in this battle. Unfortunately, Zuckerberg has opted to care more about monetizing this problem instead of combatting it. People sign up to Facebook under the guise that Zuckerberg is not watching you, so it’s not surprising that these very individuals are the ones that get tricked into believing fake-news stories. While Facebook reaps the benefit of these news stories, society in turn pays the debts. Facebook played a dangerous game by capitulating and pandering to the uneducated masses during the election cycle. And what were the results of this dangerous game? America will be led by a man who claims he can build a wall and then have Mexico pay for it. Who knows, by the time that wall is built, maybe we will be the ones jumping over it.