Mark Zuckerberg writes that Facebook is taking criticism of their running fake new during the election seriously and are working to deal with the problem. Zuckerberg said they need to balance the importance of allowing opinion-sharing with the need for accuracy. He listed seven projects Facebook is conducting including issuing warnings of fake stories and making it easier to report stories as fake. (Facebook, November 18, 2016, by Mark Zuckerberg)
With the primacy of digital news during the election giving life to scads of bogus stories, legacy news media needs to step up by finding ways to counter “entertaining garbage,” redoubling its efforts in establishing the truth. “…legacy outlets and new ones alike could let important coverage that is native to this new space [digital news sites] out from behind paywalls. Editors could treat the information ecosystem as a frontline beat. And the platforms need to find a way to support the native journalism that is the only antidote to the poison in their veins,” writes Ben Smith of Buzzfeed in the Columbia Journalist Review, November 17, 2016.
Jack Shafer, Politico Magazine, November 16, 2016, writes that fake news is not nearly as “unstoppable and dangerous” as some make it out to be. Fake stories have always been with us just as bogus information has long plagued other trades including law, medicine and science. The news media bears major responsibility for identifying and correcting fake news, but writes Shafer, “The largest responsibility will always belong to news consumers who need to read and view critically before they share stories.”