Tech Giants, The Largest Sharers Of Information, Need To Step Up To Combat Fake News

In case you forgot, Donald J. Trump — the xenophobic, Islamaphobic, sexist, racist, hatemongering, KKK-endorsed New York native and executive producer of Celebrity Apprentice— is our president-elect. (Don’t get your hopes up too much, but that could change on Dec. 19 when the U.S. Electoral College goes to vote for the president and the vice president.)

Since Trump began his presidential campaign in June of this year (it is worth noting that he announced his first presidential campaign in Oct. 1999 for the Reform Party, but ultimately withdrew in Feb. 2000, citing “infighting in the Reform Party” and that such internal conflicts were not “conducive to victory”), he was considered an outsider, a businessman with no formal ties to Washington, capable of shaking up the pundits in D.C., disrupting Wall Street, and “draining the swamp.”

Ah, that phrase — drain the swamp. The bombastic phrase that — along with “lock her up” — began to frame his entire campaign, “drain the swamp.” A phrase so perennial in politics that it’s grown soggy as it wades in the muck of the swamp, “drain the swamp.”

This phrase so positive in its ideals now left an empty carcass as Trump openly admitted at a rally in Des Moines, IA. that he “hated it” and thought it was “so hokey.” Since his unsettling but rather expected victory on Nov. 8, Trump has skipped onto a happy-go-lucky Thank You Trail, a series of rallies to keep the spotlight on him and rub salt in the opened wounds of millions of Americans who now fear their lives may be ruined forever.

Following The Donald’s presidential campaign — which regrettably beat out a woman president because we can’t have nice things, though it’s ultimately her fault for being as “establishment” as they come — fake news has swiftly cropped up, leading to an incessant spread of infected misinformation. Fake news writers and sites fabricated stories because why the h**l not. As stated by Paul Horner, a notable fake news writer who believes Trump is in the White House because of him and his stories, he says he grosses $10,000 a month from AdSense. As you may have guessed, a lot of site traffic to these stories come from social media, as someone reads the headline and shares the story without taking the time to dissect the information presented in the article, let alone click through and read the actual story.

Facebook took a lot of heat for its negligence in combating fake news on its platform during the campaign, but the social network behemoth is finally taking action.

According to a blog post written on Dec. 15 by Adam Mosseri, vice president of Facebook’s News Feed, Facebook is “committed to doing our part and today we’d like to share some updates we’re testing and starting to roll out.” Mosseri further outlines who the targets are, stating, “We’ve focused our efforts on the worst of the worst, on the clear hoaxes spread by spammers for their own gain, and on engaging both our community and third party organizations.”

With just a few clicks, you can now report stories for being “a fake news story.” Once the story has been reported, a notification will appear underneath the story, saying that it’s “Disputed by 3rd Party Fact-Checkers” and will appear lower in the news feed. It’s still possible to share the post, although Facebook will pop a notification about the post, positing that “independent fact-checkers disputed its accuracy.” Moreover, once the story has been flagged, it cannot be made into an ad and promoted either, preventing any and all revenue to whatever site the story belonged to. (#sorrynotsorryPaulHorner.)

This is just the effort by one of the many social networks that exist on the Internet. Twitter, which is notorious for its inconsistent treatment of trolls and public figures, still has yet to announce whether or not it will contribute to this new war on the accuracy of information. Instagram and Snapchat, though not as socially responsible for the reprehensible sharing of fake news, are still social sharing platforms and could be the next frontiers for fake news writers and stories.

Considering we spend approximately 4.7 hours on our smartphones, as seen in a 2015 report by Informate Mobile Intelligence, that’s 4.7 hours of consuming and sharing misinformation. If we intend to get back to an age of accuracy, of scrupulousness, of truth, then these social networks need to work together to end fake news. It’s time we hold the rest of social media accountable.

You can read the full Facebook update here.

[Featured Image by Chris Ratcliffe/Getty Images]