Facebook has vowed to crack down on misinformation and burst the "filter bubble", highlighted by the US election, but can you save people from their own willing gullibility?
When you look at how social media works, it was inevitable that it would turn into one of the world's most powerful propaganda tools. It's often painted as a force for good, letting people bypass the traditional gatekeepers in order to quickly disseminate information, but there's no guarantee that this information is actually true.
![The most power propaganda is the lies that we want to believe.](/web/20161118022555im_/http://www.watoday.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/y/w/o/t/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gsn23j.png/1478849663665.jpg)
Google News is attempting to reward news sites which stick to the facts in the post-truth era because, at least in theory, traditional journalists and news outlets are expected to strive for accuracy and independence. There's no such onus on social media users yet people seem just as willing, if not more willing, to believe what they read on the likes of Facebook and Twitter.
The US election has highlighted the power of social media as a propaganda tool, underpinning the insidious concept of "voter suppression" – attempting to dissuade your opponent's supporters from voting. Thankfully it's ineffective in Australia due to our mandatory voting system but it could have a significant impact on a close US election.
A voter suppression push to convince Clinton supporters that they could vote via Twitter, rather than attending a polling booth, was so widespread that Twitter was forced to publicly denounce it.
Blatantly false trending news stories are also a problem on Facebook, which has spawned an entire cottage industry of fake news sites because social media's vetting process for news is clearly less stringent than Google News' processes.
Facebook has usurped the role of the mainstream media in disseminating news, but hasn't taken on the fourth estate's corresponding responsibility for keeping the bastards honest. The mainstream media has no-one to blame but itself, having engaged in a tabloid race to the bottom which devalued truth to the point that blatant liars are considered more honest.
Facebook's Adam Mosseri, VP of product management, admits that the social media giant hasn't done enough to tackle the problem of fake news and vows to do more, but there's also the impact of the Facebook Newsfeed algorithm "filter bubble" which ensures people only see information which reinforces their beliefs.
The fragmentation of news is already creating a filter bubble in that most people don't tend to read the newspaper from front to back, or sit through entire news bulletins, they just pick and choose what interests them. The trouble with Facebook is that it also reinforces bias, the more extreme your political views the less likely you are to see anything with an opposing viewpoint which might help you develop a more well-rounded view of the world.
To be fair your choice of newspaper also creates a filter bubble, but it becomes more pronounced when Facebook is your only source of news. Unlike the mainstream media, there's no watchdog forcing Facebook to even pretend that it's taking an evenhanded approach to news – a fact which political manipulators use to their advantage, especially in an era where truth has become less important than feelpinions.
The fact is that people want to believe lies that fit with their view of the world. It's usually easy to check the accuracy of lies and hoaxes which appear on social media, using sites like Snopes, but people don't bother because they want to believe anything which fits with their bias.
It's hard to blame them when we've watched politicians do the same – blatantly lying and ignoring the facts because they know they'll get away with it as facts have lost their value. The so-called search for weapons of mass destruction was a perfect example and the fact that sections of the mainstream media played along didn't help.
I've seen the suggestion that Snopes actually be integrated into Facebook as an automated fact-check, which sounds like a good idea but I don't think it would be effective because the people who need to hear the truth the most are the ones most likely to ignore it or dismiss it as a conspiracy. We've reached the point where fact-checking is considered a form of political attack – we're not just anti-science, we're becoming anti-fact.
Of course the rise of fact-checking was triggered by the fact that our politicians on all sides clearly feel they can tell blatant lies and get away with it. Anyone who calls out liars for telling the lies you want to believe is clearly a liar.
To blame Facebook alone for this mess is to ignore the fact that we've created a world where people want to be lied to. Facebook's algorithms are simply designed to give the people what they want. How do you think we can tackle this issue?
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