Facebook: Truth and Consequences

To say Facebook has a lot of "continuing work" to do regarding the use of its service to propagate blatant falsehoods is an understatement. The situation is so bad that even Fox News -- that's right, the Fair and Balanced guys -- noticed the problem.

Facebook's response:

"We take misinformation on Facebook very seriously. We value authentic communication, and hear consistently from those who use Facebook that they prefer not to see misinformation. In Newsfeed we use various signals based on community feedback to determine which posts are likely to contain inaccurate information, and reduce their distribution. In Trending we look at a variety of signals to help make sure the topics being shown are reflective of real-world events, and take additional steps to prevent false or misleading content from appearing. Despite these efforts we understand there's so much more we need to do, and that is why it's important that we keep improving our ability to detect misinformation. We're committed to continuing to work on this issue and improve the experiences on our platform."

Facebook's statement pretty much assures that lies and pure invention will remain a permanent fixture. As long as the "communication[s]" are "authentic", at best Facebook will only "reduce their distribution" after they receive "community feedback". Posts need only be "reflective of real-world events". Whatever that means.

Fact is, facts require a shared understanding of how reality is constructed, including, but not limited to: what constitutes factual evidence, the use of logic, rules defining authoritative sources, etc. Facebook's "Newsfeed" is in contrast blind propagation.

I don't believe Facebook will never change it's practices to favor those that "prefer not to see misinformation": Facebook's business model is to sell advertising around user-generated media. Content that draws an audience will remain valuable to them whether or not it is misinformation, bigoted, libelous, etc. If there is a large audience that prefers such content -- and clearly there is -- they will continue to serve it up.

See this also from USA Today, and this from Biz Insider concerning Zuckerberg's clueless response, and Google's much more effective safeguards.