Fake US election news outshone real on Facebook

And if not, what will happen to the ad revenue these companies depend upon and the advertisers that depend upon them to reach users? “Nobody fact-checks anything anymore-I mean, that’s how Trump got elected”, Horner said. She previously worked as a reporting fellow for the New York Times.

Google and Facebook have said they will update their advertising policies to target misleading ads that direct people to fake news sites.

One of such outright wrong stories was said to have reported that Pope Francis had endorsed Mr. Trump.On Sunday, the website called 70News had wrongly stated that Mr. Trump, who won the Electoral College, was ahead of his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, even in the popular vote count. “His followers don’t fact-check anything – they’ll post everything, believe anything”, Horner said.

Facebook frequently tweaks its algorithm to improve engagement. Facebook’s efforts to weed out fake media sites, however, would have affected right wing websites in a disproportionate manner.

Not to mention, the Huffington Post aptly pointed out this week that a lot of online users only base their judgment on an article’s headline, rather than the actual content of the piece. But it can be problematic when it comes to false but highly interesting posts. A person’s “News Feed” tends to be optimized to gather interest and generate feedback. Whose key players have come under fire, for not taking necessary steps to prevent fake news from proliferating across the web during the 2016 United States elections. “Highly partisan, fact-light outlets” on both the right and the left, he wrote, “have no concern for the truth, and really only care for engagement”. Google said it is working on a policy change that will prevent its Ad Sense software, so its ad-selling software, from being used on websites that propagate false information.

He also pointed out that although his new project works “well enough”, it’s now just a proof of concept.

Though, while it’s up to these companies to determine how they approach misinformation, it’d be nice if they would realize their role in politics, according to Blevins.

In a post Saturday night, Zuckerberg rejected that idea. Hence, how Facebook curates its news feed could affect what Americans read. “So I would just stay off of Facebook and, kind of like, do your research”.

However, Zuckerberg added, Facebook has also found that people are less inclined to click on links or otherwise check out shared stories that did not line up with their views. “And all this Facebook stuff”.

According to social media expert and Political Science professor Jeffrey Sadow, the likelihood that Facebook impacted the election is slim to none.