The recently concluded US Presidential elections became the centerpiece of what Facebook is now dealing with. It is an issue that involves fabricated information, and that the world's most popular website has led it to steer the victory of Donald Trump. But while Mark Zuckerberg is suggesting otherwise, some Facebook employees are doing their part to show the truth.
BuzzFeed recently reported that several Facebook employees have "formed an unofficial task force" to, once and for all, question the company's role in delivering Trump into the highest position in the land. Although there's not much information about the group, one member said that "dozens" of Facebook employees are involved, and that they are meeting in secret to allow the members to "speak freely and without fear of condemnation from senior management.
Another employee even countered Zuckerberg's statement, saying that he (Zuckerberg) and the rest of Facebook knew that "fake news ran wild" in the entire campaign season. This was in contrast to what the Facebook CEO said last week when he described the idea of his platform harboring fake news to influence the results of the elections as a "pretty crazy idea". Zuckerberg also added that fake news on Facebook is "a very small amount" when it comes to other aspects and information found on the social media site.
Engadget said that Zuckerberg's perception on fake news was that is was never part of the election equation. Instead, he pointed that what made the voters cast their choices was through their "lived experience", and that the various information users read daily on their News Feeds are varied and not an "echo chamber".
As for the task force, they remain to be in the shadows and away from the eyes of the media for fear that they might lose their job at Facebook if they are named. Their latest efforts were reviewing the company's move to address reports of fake news, or if Facebook "effectively used" filtering features to scan content from offensive and unwanted information.
