Facebook can no longer be ‘I didn’t do it’ boy of global media by Emily Bell.
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Barack Obama called out the fake news problem directly at a rally in Michigan on the eve of the election: “And people, if they just repeat attacks enough, and outright lies over and over again, as long as it’s on Facebook and people can see it, as long as it’s on social media, people start believing it….And it creates this dust cloud of nonsense.”Yesterday, Zuckerberg disputed this, saying that “the idea that fake news on Facebook… influenced the election…is a pretty crazy idea” and defending the “diversity” of information Facebook users see. Adam Mosseri, the company’s VP of Product Development, said Facebook must work on “improving our ability to detect misinformation.” This line is part of Zuckerberg’s familiar but increasingly unconvincing narrative that Facebook is not a media company, but a tech company. Given the shock of Trump’s victory and the universal finger-pointing at Facebook as a key player in the election, it is clear that Zuckerberg is rapidly losing that argument.
In fact, Facebook, now the most influential and powerful publisher in the world, is becoming the “I didn’t do it” boy of global media. Clinton supporters and Trump detractors are searching for reasons why a candidate who lied so frequently and so flagrantly could have made it to the highest office in the land. News organizations, particularly cable news, are shouldering part of the blame for failing to report these lies for what they were. But a largely hidden sphere of propagandistic pages that target and populate the outer reaches of political Facebook are arguably even more responsible.
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You can tell Bell has had several cups of the Obama kool-aid by her uncritical acceptance of Barack Obama’s groundless attacks on “…fake news problem….”
Does Bell examine the incidence of “fake news” in other elections?
No.
Does Bell specify which particular “fake news” stories should have been corrected?
No.
Does Bell explain why voters can’t distinguish “fake news” from truthful news?
No.
Does Bell explain why mainstream media is better than voters at detecting “fake news?”
No.
Does Bell explain why she should be the judge over reporting during the 2016 Presidential election?
No.
Does Bell explain why she and Obama consider voters to be dumber than themselves?
No.
Do I think Bell or anyone else should be censoring Facebook for “false news?”
No.
How about you?