A recent study published in Nature: Human Behavior shows that Facebook spreads fake news more than any other platform.
Platforms such as Facebook profit from the spread of dubious information: indeed, fake news generates more views and clicks than “regular” information, which in turn drives more revenue to the corporation.
Fake news represents a harm to healthy democracies. Citizens are presentend with ever-growing amounts of information, yet this unprecedented access makes it all the more confusing when it comes to evaluating the reliability of a source—no matter one’s level of education.
Whether the final burden of fact-checking should be left to the user or the platform, the widespread of misinformation is happening, and in no small part due to Facebook itself.