Although Mark Zuckerberg thinks it is very unlikely that fake news spreading around Facebook and other social media sites swayed the presidential election, he believes that the problem of hoaxes should be looked into. This came after people started blaming Facebook for tolerating the distribution of unreliable news on the platform.
On Saturday, Zuckerberg wrote a post on his Facebook page to express his opinion on Facebook and the election. He emphasized that the goal of Facebook is to provide everyone a voice, and that he strongly believes in people.
Mark Zuckerberg vows more action to tackle fake news on Facebook https://t.co/eHaD3Q0bhN
— The Guardian (@guardian) November 13, 2016
Earlier, at the Technology Conference which took place on Thursday, Zuckerberg stated that the accusations suggesting that Facebook largely affected the election is "pretty crazy." According to him, the fake news on Facebook accounts to "a very small amount of content."
Furthermore, Zuckerberg states that blaming Facebook for the result of the presidential election proves that some people do not take supporters of Donald Trump and their stand on issues seriously. He also emphasized his point that there are also fake news in favor of Hillary Clinton and not just for Trump. Zuckerberg also added that he believes people are smart enough to discern authentic news from hoaxes.
As reported by Business Insider, current U.S. president, Barack Obama, also previously expressed his opinion on hoaxes on Facebook, claiming that they are forming a "dust cloud of nonsense." He states that if offensive statements and lies are repeatedly reported and spread around social media long enough, people will start to believe in them.
A study conducted by BuzzFeed shows that 38% of Facebook posts shared by three major right-wing political pages are "false or misleading information," while three separate left-wing pages do the same thing almost 20% of the time. An investigation by BuzzFeed reveals that some teenagers residing in Macedonia create false, pro-Trump articles that go viral on social media platforms including Facebook.
