Check Your Facts
With the abundance in resources and the ease in which people use to spread information, the issue of misinformation has become more and more prominent. Facebook is one of the platforms that has received lots of attention as of late for not handling misinformation. With the claims that there were campaigns to misinform people during the Brexit vote and even the recent presidential election, the company made the decision to combat it.
There were a bunch of solutions that people suggested Facebook take. Some wanted a bunch of moderators to be hired, or have some program created that would automatically detect false information. In the end, Facebook decided to outsource the task to third party fact checking companies. Many of which are news publishers themselves.
A year into this attempted solution, and many are protesting this solution. One reason being that these journalist companies are hurting for money, and that the opportunity presented by Facebook would create a conflict of interest. This could manifest itself on a number of levels. One simply being that these fact checkers could give preferential treatment to articles that are published by themselves, or those published by companies they have close ties with. With the evaluation process tainted by the all to human desire for self-gain, many demand a solution that has less potential for moral hazard.
Perhaps it is a stretch to think that the news companies themselves being used, such as the Associated Press, would be significantly motivated to perpetuate bad news. After all, they do have their own reputation to maintain. So considering this, they're both an agent to their own companies and Facebook when performing these fact checks.
From Facebook's point of view, they might not truly care about the quality of the fact checking. There have been a series of requests seeking data on the impact of these efforts. None of which have been satisfied. Some have been made by the fact checkers themselves, looking for feedback on their efforts. Why wouldn't Facebook help the people they hired to do their job? Some claim this whole effort of hiring fact checkers is simply a publicity stunt. Taking this approach, Facebook would be able to better maintain a positive position in the public eye and keep people on their platform.
The challenges of self protection getting in the way of both the principle and agent is not inherent to the approach, but to the tension create by the interests if the principles at play. To relieve this tension, whatever party that performs the role of fact checker should only have one principle - Facebook. This would free up the new companies to focus on their job of creating quality news stories, while Facebook would shoulder the costs of hiring the labor in house, and the cost of their efforts.
On a whole, the issue of misinformation seems like a very challenging problem to overcome, and certainly some effort is better than none. Personally I like the idea of some sort of program that automatically performs the fact checking. It would be faster and would at least eliminate some of the human bias.
This post was inspired by a story of the same topic at the Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/13/way-too-little-way-too-late-facebooks-fact-checkers-say-effort-is-failing
Let me remark before commenting on your post that you are indeed free to write about another topic than is suggested by the prompt, but in that case you are obligated to make a connection between what you write about and the course. Fake news is, of course, a kind of moral hazard. But is it the type of moral hazard that happens within organizations?
ReplyDeleteNow, as to your argument, let me make a counter one. When I go to the supermarket as I get next to the checkout there are some noticeable items that I never buy but that I do look at. One of those is candy bars. The other are tabloid newspapers like the National Inquirer. I treat the tabloids as fake news and the candy as junk food. However, nobody is going after the supermarket to not sell this stuff or to move it away from the checkout counter. (Why do you think the store places it there?) So one issue to consider is whether Facebook should be treated differently, because it has a much larger audience, or if the rules should be the same regardless of the business.
A different issue is about what my librarian friends call "information literacy," which is the ability for an individual to validate any bit of information, typically by finding independent sources that produces the same information, as well as assessing the reliability of the source. The issue then is why fake news works. Why don't people ignore it? To give an analogy that I think is relevant, I regularly get phishing emails, as I'm sure most everyone does. I know to ignore them and put them in the trash. Yet if everyone did that the phishing wouldn't work. So is the solution education, prevention, or some kind of alert system?
Now a third thing is the seeming consequences combined with who is generating the fake news. If it is state actors (Russia) or agents who have the support of some foreign country, this becomes quite different from an individual who generates fake news but is otherwise not attached to an organization. The first type of fake news is very much like a soft ware based on propaganda. If that is what is happening, it is quite unclear that regulating a commercial organization is the right response. I may be a necessary component of a right response, but it is likely not nearly enough.
The last bit I would comment on is whether sensible things can happen now. I'm skeptical on this front.
I tried to write my comment in a way as not to engage our national politics. I have a sense that you want such a conversation. I'd be willing to do that one-on-one outside the scope of our class, but not within it.
I wouldn't say this is an issue that occurs within organizations. However, since many organizations do interact with one another, it might be relevant for organizations to internally consider some of the challenges that handling fake news brings. Should we out source or handle internally? How would a certain approach affect the company image?
DeleteI do think that education would be the best solution to fake news. It might be a pain as the methods to spread it expand, but perhaps people as a whole will be more alert and involved.
Misinformation (AKA fake news) is perhaps the most relevant and topical example of moral hazard in the public eye. I wonder, however, if by taking the blame for the fake news and offering a solution, Facebook has accepted responsibility for the fake news. If Facebook is responsible, are they now suffering from moral hazard? By choosing what to filter and what not to filter, Facebook is given this opportunity to profit heavily off of the fake news, which is textbook moral hazard.
ReplyDelete