Facebook Shouldn't Fact-Check

["David Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Facebook Shouldn't Fact-Check
Date: December 1, 2016 at 9:26:24 AM EST
To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
Reply-To: dewayne-net () warpspeed com

Facebook Shouldn’t Fact-Check
By Jessica Lessin
Nov 29 2016
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/29/opinion/facebook-shouldnt-fact-check.html 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/29/opinion/facebook-shouldnt-fact-check.html?em_pos=large&emc=edit_ty_20161129&nl=opinion-today&nlid=63457&ref=headline&te=1&_r=1>

We finally got a grudging mea culpa from Mark Zuckerberg 
<http://www.npr.org/2016/11/19/502717970/mark-zuckerberg-addresses-fake-news-on-facebook>: an admission that fake news 
is a significant problem that his social network must help solve.

But as a journalist who has been covering the inner workings of the technology industry for more than a decade, I find 
the calls for Facebook <http://www.nytimes.com/topic/company/facebook-inc?inline=nyt-org> to accept broad 
responsibility for fact-checking the news, including by hiring editors and reporters, deeply unsettling.

What those demanding that Facebook accept “responsibility” for becoming the dominant news aggregator of our time seem 
to be overlooking is that there’s a big difference between the editorial power that individual news organizations wield 
and that which Facebook could. Such editorial power in Facebook’s hands would be unprecedented and dangerous.

We can all agree that Facebook should do much more to make sure that blatantly fabricated claims that Donald J. Trump 
won the popular vote or received the pope’s endorsement don’t spread and are, at a minimum, labeled fakes.

Facebook admits, and my sources confirm, that it can do a better job of this by helping users flag dubious articles and 
predicting fakes based on data it has for search. This doesn’t have to involve humans: Facebook could decide to label 
content as suspected as fake if it was flagged a certain number of times and if it displayed other questionable 
attributes. Such a move would not mean Facebook’s taking broad responsibility for what’s true.

But hiring editors to enforce accuracy — or even promising to enforce accuracy by partnering with third parties — would 
create the perception that Facebook is policing the “truth,” and that is worrisome. The first reason has to do with the 
nature of Facebook’s business. The second has to do with the news business.

One thing is clear to anyone who has worked in a newsroom: Not all fact-checking decisions are black and white.

Did the pope endorse Mr. Trump? He did not.

[snip]





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