Facebook and Fake News
Articles referenced:
http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/11/17/495827410/from-hate-speech-to-fake-news-the-content-crisis-facing-mark-zuckerberg (general discussion)
http://www.journalism.org/2016/05/26/news-use-across-social-media-platforms-2016/ (44% world population statistic)
Following the 2016 Presidential Election, there has been much debate and media scrutiny over the inaccuracy of news and popularity of fake news websites. Facebook in particular has taken a lot of flak for the low quality of the articles shared on its various news feeds, as most of these fake news websites were anti-Hillary and pro-Trump and have proven to be receiving similar web traffic in comparison to credible news sites such as The Economist, The New York Times, BBC, and other websites known for being unbiased. Facebook has become a platform to share news articles and videos on, and for nearly two-thirds of Facebook users, or 44% of the world population, Facebook is becoming a primary source of information about the world, a troubling fact when understanding the sheer volume of fake news sites that reach these news feeds. The primary reason for why these fake news websites have become so prevalent is due to Facebook’s faulty algorithm for showing and hiding posts. Facebook promotes websites that are often clicked on and receive heavy web traffic when put out on the news feed, encouraging news websites to skew headlines and stories to add shock value and thus become more engaging of a click than other credible news outlets. This process of promoting news outlets that receive web traffic rather than those with the highest validity, combined with the increasing population of users who use Facebook as a source of information, creates an information cascade is formed through people’s Facebook feeds as users begin to share more of the same fake news and users dissatisfied with this begin to use the website less.
As we’ve discussed in class, the website becomes increasingly valuable as more people use it; however, as the lack of validity behind posts on the news feed increases, users who are dissatisfied with the clog of low quality news articles on their feeds are thus less inclined to use the website. As such, these users share less of the things they read on more credible news outlets due to their decreased Facebook usage, in turn creating an even higher concentration of fake news appearing on others’ feeds. An information cascade occurs when people make decisions based on the actions and decisions of earlier people, and this process begins to snowball and spread information around. On Facebook, dense clusters form between close friends, and these clusters are connected by weak ties. Due to the number of weak ties one has on Facebook, it is likely that many fake news stories will make their way onto the cluster’s various members’ news feeds with the potential to be shared by one of them. As soon as this article makes its way within the cluster, it will spread quickly throughout the cluster and due to the nature of strong ties, people will be willing to believe it if others have as well. Thus if false information is spread out on Facebook in the way it has been, as users are more frequently reading fake news, these cascades will lead people to believe fake news that they increasingly frequently see on their news feed. With a growing population of users who use Facebook as their primary source for news, this trend is troubling, particularly when the users who share valid news articles are less inclined to use the website, meaning more and more people will see biased news stories that could impact one’s world views despite the lack of validity. It has already impacted our nation’s most recent and historically controversial Presidential election and is an issue that needs immediate addressing.