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You might argue that I’m no better than Mike by filtering the stories I don’t like from sites I don’t agree with. The big difference, though, is that the only news I consume on Facebook is related to the babies, pets, and baby pets of my friends and family. If you want to discuss politics then you’ll have to buy me a drink first so we can talk face to face.
See, Facebook doesn’t care about the veracity of the political news being shared just so long as people spend lots of time viewing ads while sharing it. That’s fine for cat videos, gadgets, and recipes, but surely political news requires a different set of personalization algorithms. Baseless conspiracy theories and outright lies should be downranked just as quickly as the clickbait articles Facebook demoted in August. If Google News can introduce a nonpartisan fact checking feature then surely Facebook could do the same. It would go a long way in helping Mike and I, and the nation, to become friends again....
Very interesting analysis of Facebook and fact checking.