People are looking for something to blame for Trump’s win and have set their eyes on Facebook. Image INQUIRER.net
Despite Facebook’s efforts to filter out false news, some still managed to get through. Because of this, many are blaming the social media service for aiding the rise of Donald Trump to win the election.
Mark Zuckerberg strongly disagrees. At the Techonomy 2016 in California, Zuckerberg said that Facebook should not be held responsible for how the elections turned out, reports The Verge.
Zuckerberg stated, “I do think there is a certain profound lack of empathy in asserting that the only reason someone could have voted the way they did is they saw some fake news. If you believe that, then I don’t think you have internalized the message the Trump supporters are trying to send in this election.”
With regards to the “filter bubble,” the Facebook CEO cited the research they had conducted which found that liberals and conservatives only see around 1% less news from the other side. The study also reinforced that people simply did not click on news that did not reinforce their previously held beliefs.
“I think we would be surprised by how many things that don’t conform to our worldview, we just tune out,” Zuckerberg said.
Other researchers, however, found flaws in the research regarding the sample of users and Facebook’s data about users being inherently private.
Finally, Zuckerberg expressed deep concern about the impact that Facebook has on democracy. He said there were things that could be improved regarding the way news is distributed. “I really care about this. I want what we do to have a good impact on the world. I want people to have a diversity of information.” Alfred Bayle