When it was officially announced that Donald Trump would be the next President of the United States, commentators were quick to blame Facebook. They pointed out that fake news on the social media site was a driving factor for the outcome of the election. And while CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg has admitted that such stories do exist - though small in quantity - he also called the idea "pretty crazy."
There is no doubt that social media plays a great role in politics as the world has come to know it today. It is a strong and amazing platform to get on, as it often times creates a personal feel between individuals. But it is a double-edged sword and the outcome is not always a good one - though "good" is a subjective concept.
Sticking to the facts, false stories have been published on Facebook and the general public tends to take all news articles as truthful, often times without a grain of salt. As C|Net lists down, there was one particular false story about a murdered FBI Agent, who was associated with Hillary Clinton's email leaks. There was another about the Pope endorsing President-Elect Trump.
As Business Insider notes, Obama also touched on the amount of repetition, which undoubtedly also helps in thickening the cloud of disillusion. "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," he said.
With all the flak that his hard work has been receiving, Zuckerberg has finally set the record straight on what he believes happened in the months of the Presidential Race. "Personally, I think the idea that fake news on Facebook - it's a very small amount of the content - to think it influenced the election in any way is a pretty crazy idea," he said at the Techonomy conference in Half Moon Bay, California.
The 32-year-old billionaire also shared that he believed the general public was in such a state of shock, that putting some of the blame on Facebook was an attempt to try and make sense of things. And while fake stories could be the root of some votes, Zuckerberg did not believe the idea in its entirety. "It takes a profound lack of empathy to think that someone voted some way because of a fake news story," he said.
Despite this, Facebook is aware that it needs to work on removing illegitimate sites from its News Feed. With almost 2 billion users - 40 percent of which gets news from the social media site - Zuckerberg's team has a lot riding on its shoulders. Adam Mosseri, vice president of product management at Facebook, admitted that "there's so much more work [they] need to do."
Zuckerberg's statement is a quite nonsensical, though it would make sense why he wants to wipe the hands of Facebook clean. In truth, Facebook is not responsible for the third-party content that is displayed on its site. Nevertheless, the existence of such stories will, of course, reach the numerous people that are glued to their screens.
But the blame is, of course, not exactly on Facebook, but rather its users. If these fake stories were indeed what swayed an individual to vote one way or another - especially if it is for something as vital as the President of the United States - there is the inherent responsibility to check the facts. What should be second nature has quickly become ignorable and therein lies the danger.
