Nearly a week after the US presidential election, Facebook continues to be roundly criticized for its role in spreading misinformation. In the wake of a close contest, some have said Facebook’s lax attitude toward hoaxes swung the election to Donald Trump. The controversy has renewed calls for the company to take its fake news problem more seriously.
Today Gizmodo published a much-discussed story reporting that Facebook had built and abandoned a tool to reduce the spread of fake news stories over fears that the tool would disproportionately affect conservative news sites. Facebook acknowledged that the company has been reconsidering its approach to combating hoaxes, but says the story’s central allegation is false. So what’s really going on?
Here’s what we know: Facebook did build a tool that identifies fake news stories, and launched it in 2015. At the time, the company mentioned some of the ways it detects fake news. “People often share these hoaxes and later decide to delete their original posts after they realize they have been tricked,” the company wrote. “These types of posts also tend to receive lots of comments from friends letting people know this is a hoax, and comments containing links to hoax-busting websites.”
Facebook built a tool for identifying fake news in 2015
With the update, Facebook introduced a feature to let users report stories as false. The tool is still active today. Unfortunately, it’s ineffective. A BuzzFeed investigation this year found that top right-wing Facebook news outlets published false or misleading stories 38 percent of the time, as did 20 percent of top left-wing outlets.