I<\/p>\n
n 2015, Facebook\u2019s interest in the world of news became more overt with the launch of \u201cInstant Articles,\u201d keeping users on the Facebook platform instead of sending them to the outside web when they clicked on a link to an article. But the quest to conquer content distribution and consumption on the internet started well before then.<\/p>\n
Remember, Facebook used to have \u201ca wall\u201d and now it has a \u201cNews Feed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Facebook has gradually built out its platform to serve publishers, whether it\u2019s through analytics dashboards or Instant Articles or rich-media link previews, through Follow buttons or Verified pages or the Trending section of the News Feed. And, through no fault of its own, Facebook also happens to have a lot of eyeballs.<\/p>\n
Obviously, publishers became interested, and then hooked \u2014 with little power to negotiate against Facebook.<\/p>\n
Until December, the company took no responsibility for blurring media brands and news content to all look the same through Instant Articles. Facebook threw this site or that site up on the Trending section with little-to-no regard for the most accurate and trusted sources. And yet, former Facebook News Feed editors admitted to suppressing conservative stories and boosting left-wing content, which shows some awareness that Facebook could influence its users via the news that flows through the social network\u2019s veins.<\/p>\n
Before the election, Facebook stuck with the party line: \u201cWe are a tech company, not a media\u00a0company.\u201d<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t until after the election, after BuzzFeed exposed how influential Facebook\u2019s fake news problem could have been, that Zuck started to change his tune.<\/p>\n
No president has ever represented the interest of 2\u00a0billion people, nor has anyone ever attempted to regulate the flow of information for a group so large and diverse, and take responsibility for their experience using the service. For that, Facebook will willingly play a role. But given the breadth of users and the depth of the problem, I highly doubt that Facebook will \u201cmove fast, break things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Instead, Facebook is pushing half-hearted solutions and scapegoating the issue to other parties, prepping to weather this storm on an already-laid foundation of media dependence and habit.<\/p>\n
November 10, 2016<\/strong><\/p>\n Zuckerberg\u2019s initial reaction, two days after the election, was to diminish fake news on Facebook as an issue:<\/p>\n \u201cPersonally, I think the idea that fake news on Facebook \u2014 of which it\u2019s a small amount of content \u2014 influenced the election in any way is a pretty crazy idea,\u201d said Zuckerberg<\/a> at the Techonomy conference. \u201cI do think there is a profound lack of empathy in asserting that the only reason someone could\u2019ve voted the way they did is fake news.\u201d<\/p>\n That fails\u00a0to account for the fact that more than half of U.S. adults get their news from social media<\/a>, and that most students have trouble distinguishing fake news from real news<\/a>\u00a0and that 20 percent of social media users say that they modified their stance<\/a> on a social or political issue because of content seen on social media.<\/p>\n