Zuckerberg Denies Swaying Election, But Promises Action on Fake News

trumps-facebook-pageMark Zuckerberg has promised action on the plague of fake news articles on Facebook, but has again denied that the wealth of inaccurate information circulating on the platform in any way aided Donald Trumps presidential election victory.

“Of all the content on Facebook, more than 99 per cent of what people see is authentic,” wrote Zuckerberg in a post on Facebook. “Only a very small amount is fake news and hoaxes. The hoaxes that do exist are not limited to one partisan view, or even to politics. Overall, this makes it extremely unlikely hoaxes changed the outcome of this election in one direction or the other.”

Earlier this year, Facebook was accused of showing liberal bias, and specifically being opposed to Donald Trump, after it was alleged that human moderators for its Trending Stories section were favouring liberal stories.

Facebook denied the allegations but did sack its human verification team, instead relying solely on an algorithm to determine which stories were displayed to which people.

Following the sacking of the human moderators, however, an investigation by BuzzFeed that focused on six of the largest partisan pages (three liberal and three conservative) found that a large number of posts contained false or misleading information, with conservative posts more likely to be false (38 per cent versus 19 per cent).

The study also found that the least accurate pages generated some of the highest number of shares, reactions and comments on Facebook, far higher than mainstream political news pages, while a subsequent investigation found that more than 100 pro-Trump political sites were being run by teenagers in a small town in Macedonia.

While Facebook has been criticised for allowing false news to spread and propagate, it has also been accused of creating an echo chamber that enables users to only come into contact with news stories that affirm their existing political viewpoints.

With the social network increasingly considered a primary source of news for many users, and more voters turning to alternative digital news sources as a signal of their displeasure with mainstream media coverage, Facebooks news channels become more and more important.

The fact that the only editorial control currently in place is an algorithm determining what is most likely to generate clicks is certain to face more criticism in the months ahead if the company does not make swift adjustments.

“Our goal is to give every person a voice,” wrote Zuckerberg. “We believe deeply in people. Assuming that people understand what is important in their lives, and that they can express those views, has driven not only our community, but democracy overall.

“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 and flag as incorrect even when factual.”