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[giga]

SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook employees have formed an unofficial task force to question the role their company played in promoting fake news in the lead-up to Donald Trump’s victory in the US election last week, amid a larger, national debate over the rise of fake and misleading news articles in a platform used by more than 150 million Americans.
The task force, which sources tell BuzzFeed News includes employees from across the company, has already refuted a statement made by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg at a conference last week that the argument that fake news on Facebook affected the election was “a pretty crazy idea.”

“It’s not a crazy idea. What’s crazy is for him to come out and dismiss it like that, when he knows, and those of us at the company know, that fake news ran wild on our platform during the entire campaign season,” said one Facebook employee, who works in the social network’s engineering division. He, like the four other Facebook employees who spoke to BuzzFeed News for this story, would only speak on condition of anonymity. All five employees said they had been warned by their superiors against speaking to press, and feared they would lose their jobs if named.

The employees declined to provide many details on the task force. One employee said “more than dozens” of employees were involved, and that they had met twice in the last six days. At the moment, they are meeting in secret, to allow members of the group to speak freely and without fear of condemnation from senior management. The group plans to formalize its meetings and eventually make a list of recommendations to Facebook’s senior management. Another Facebook employee said while the task force remained small, “hundreds” of Facebook employees had expressed dissatisfaction with the company’s stance on fake news in private online chats, and wanted to support efforts to challenge that position.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/sheerafren...attle-fake-n?utm_term=.oy4YE4EvgJ#.ikRQrprwMZ

 

[Ogodei]

Fake news in private chats is one thing, long as you're not harassing/threatening people, you do you there, but what you disseminate publicly...

 

[joe2187]

Burn it down.

 

[Permanently A]

Even if there were to be something implemented it wouldn't work out. Streisand effect and all that.

"WHAT ARE THE DEMS HIDING? CLICK HERE TO SEE THE NEWS THAT FACEBOOK AND UNCLE SAM DON'T WANT YOU TO FIND OUT!"

 

[Somnid]

Sounds ugly. It's also a much more difficult and nuanced problem than they think because things can be partially true or unverifiable and if people even think there's news manipulation they will stop trusting you. I also don't think fake news was the real problem, the people who wanted to read bad things about Hillary sought it out as well as the ones who wanted to find good things about Trump. In fact, sources that don't verify a viewpoint were likely seen as untrustworthy to users. This isn't how it works.

 

[lazygecko]

Facebook is increasingly becoming the main platform in which the public consumes news. And anyone can publish whatever the hell they want up there presented as a news article, without all that unneccessary extra hassle like going through the process of proper journalistic conduct and verifying sources, etc etc. It's high time for companies to Facebook to own up to the reality that they have become something much more than a mere tech company and that carries with it a tremendous responsibility.

 

[Totakeke]

People in this thread are going to argue about fake news using their own ideas of what constitute fake news.

Let me define my definition of fake news.


News like these.

One example: I’m from a small town in south Louisiana. The day before the election, I looked at the Facebook page of the current mayor. Among the items he posted there in the final 48 hours of the campaign: Hillary Clinton Calling for Civil War If Trump Is Elected. Pope Francis Shocks World, Endorses Donald Trump for President. Barack Obama Admits He Was Born in Kenya. FBI Agent Who Was Suspected Of Leaking Hillary’s Corruption Is Dead.

http://www.niemanlab.org/2016/11/th...ctions-media-failure-are-likely-to-get-worse/

 

[Deleted member 80556]

Hope they deliver the suggestions anonymously as well. Considering Zuckerberg's "I don't give a fuck about fake news, all while employing white supremacists supporters" stance, I don't have much faith about them hearing them with open mind.

In case that doesn't work, I hope they start doing small changes behind the scenes to prevent fake news that their superiors won't notice.

 

[Massive Duck. C.M.]

Facebook to rebrand as Racebook, deal exclusively in fake news

 

[Dan]

Fake news in private chats is one thing, long as you're not harassing/threatening people, you do you there, but what you disseminate publicly...

You're misreading that line. It's saying that within private chats, Facebook employees were complaining about Zuckerberg's response and the company's policies.

 

[Boney]

Zuckerberg is a dickhead? Surpriiiise

 

[Totakeke]

In the early months of 2004, a Harvard student called Mark Zuckerberg got so drunk, he tripped over a coiled snake of cables in his dorm room, smashed through his ground floor window and ended up face down in the wet grass, whereupon the girl he had admired came round the corner, arms linked with her friends, who, all three, had to step over the fallen norm-core future billionaire before he puked on himself. It was, Zuckerberg has noted, the most humiliating moment of his life.

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...lection-alt-right-social-media-tech-companies

 

[Ogodei]

Zuckerberg is a dickhead? Surpriiiise

The tech bros took the idea of "free information" too far.

 

[Skellig Gra]

Lol that's cute they think they have a say in how the company is run.

 

[Klocker]

I'm glad they are trying to fix this shit but man people are so stupid believing that crap... my god... really really fucking stupid.

You can't fix stupid.

 

[Doc Holliday]

It's a problem for sure. I usually don't for them, but after seeing that Trump quote about republicans a billion, I started thinking it was true.

A friend of mine just posted a story about Hillary being pardoned by Obama....wtf