A Secret "Task Force" Emerges in the Wake of Facebook's Fake News Problem

Almost a week has gone by and yet everyone’s still trying to decipher the “stunning” result of the U.S. election. Following accusations that Facebook’s News Feed had influenced the election by spreading fake news regarding political candidates, CEO Mark Zuckerberg dismissed the claim as “a pretty crazy idea.”

Some Facebook employees who chose to remain anonymous, however, are voicing very different opinions. According to sources, “more than dozens” of employees have come together to form a secret “task force” to address and propose solutions for the social networking site’s fake news issue to the company’s leadership. A recent BuzzFeed investigation attested that 38% of stories published by far-right Facebook news outlets were false or misleading, and 20% of far-left news reports were distorted.

While such findings should be met with some healthy skepticism, one Facebook employee commented: “What’s crazy is for [Zuckerberg] to come out and dismiss it like that, when he knows, and those of us at the company know, that fake news ran wild on our platform during the entire campaign season.” The Facebook fake news issue brings to light serious difficulties regarding the proliferation of information on the internet, specifically the task of maintaining freedom of speech and press while keeping steady the influence of media and social networking sites. Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.