Academics and various organizations have responded to the problem, but curtailing fake news is likely to be a long battle. By at least some measures, fake news generated higher levels of engagement on Facebook than did real news during the final three months of the presidential campaign, reports BuzzFeed.
The top 20 performing election stories from hyperpartisan blogs and fake websites generated approximately 8.77 million shares, reactions and comments on Facebook compared to the 7.36 million shares, reactions and comments by the 20 best-performing stores from 19 major websites. All but three of the top 20 fake stories were either pro-Trump or anti-Hillary Clinton, with one of the biggest stories falsely claiming that the former Secretary of State had sold weapons to ISIS.
By some accounts, the problem may have ballooned after Facebook changed its algorithms to favor posts from friends and family over those from major news outlets.
In some ways, the problem is an outgrowth of individuals’ desires to read and share content that they find agreeable, even if it appears fake or from gossip rags. Other factors complicate the matter. In the past, most fake news was found in tabloid newspapers found by cash registers in supermarkets. Typically, the papers would include articles with outrageous claims such as movie stars being abducted by space aliens.
In the digital world, however, modern day fake news appears side-by-side with real news. The end result is the many fake news stories appear to be more convincing than their tabloid counterparts. In an editorial from The New York Times last fall, Cathy O’Neil, a data scientist and author of “How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy,” maintains that social media website algorithms should place an emphasis on content from established news sites.
Facebook, at least to a certain extent, appears to have reached a similar conclusion. Earlier this year, it announced that its trending topics feature will only display news stories that have been covered by a number of established news outlets. The stories, furthermore, will no longer be selected based on users’ preferences.
Facebook is also working with fact checker groups to help curtail fake news. Yet, O’Neil argues that changing algorithms can help, but technology can’t always discern between the truth and a lie, so social media platforms such as Facebook should view themselves as the final arbiters of news and, as such, use their deep pockets to hire editors to address the problem.
Academics, meanwhile, are hoping that education can help curtail fake news. University of Washington professors Carl Bergstrom and Jevin West, for example, will offer a course this spring entitled “Calling Bullshit in the Age of Big Data.” The class seeks to arm students with critical thinking skills and an understanding of how fake news is disseminated online.
Judging by the fact that the professors’ online announcements of the class have gone viral, it appears that strong demand exists for the program.
