Revolutionary changes on Facebook. Not only the layout of the portal will change but also the security rules. As Mark Zuckerberg’s company argues, all of it because of the pandemic, the US elections and the disinformation threat. Those are not the first declarations. However, as the data shows, up to this day the attempts to fight the fake news outlets looked rather like fighting the shadow.
Probably the part of you was already forced to change to the new version of Facebook. If not, it is coming soon. The changes are revolutionary. However, besides visual “refreshment” (or, as others say, complete mess) the portal is expecting changes also in communication formulas between users.
Defence24.pl reports that forwarding a message at the same time will be limited on messenger to up to five people or groups – Facebook informed. “The actions of the company are supposed to be another manifestation of actions limiting the spread of disinformation, virus messages and harmful content” – we read.
Defence24.pl quoted the words of Mark Zuckerberg’s company employees:
“We think that the control of the spread of disinformation has a crucial meaning because of the still ongoing global pandemic of COVID-19 and upcoming important elections in the US, New Zealand and other countries” – said Facebook CEO.
Defence24.pl experts are sceptical towards those ideas. In their opinion, it will not scare the potential spreaders of propaganda and fake news. “There will still exist the possibility to pass the information gradually” – they noticed. What is, however, important, the whole situation shows that Facebook, at least declaratively, wants to show itself as the website fighting against dangers and widespread lies.
The reasons for intensifying the actions are obvious: coronavirus pandemics and US presidential elections in two months. As the Facebook CEO revealed, the main Focus of Facebook employees will be to fight the false accounts and fake news. The possibility of publishing political publicities and political agitation will also be limited.
Surprisingly, nothing has been said about the real Facebook’s problem – closed groups. About a month ago StopFake analysed, that there are already over 10 million groups with 1.5 billion users on Facebook. The portal informs that one user can join 6000 of them. – Once you reach this limit, you’ll need to leave some groups before you can join new ones – we read in the terms and conditions. It is surprising, as it is difficult to imagine one person involved in so many places. It is, however, the perfect opportunity for all those who would like to spread harmful and false content in automated way. Closed groups, because of their hermetic and uncontrolled character are de facto fake news factories.
Furthermore, according to Avaaz’s research, despite earlier declarations of the website to fight the fake news about the coronavirus, “top 10 pages with disinformation about the coronavirus was visited four times more frequently on this platform than top 10 relatable and verified pages with medical information” (quote from defence24.pl). Superficial moves such as the one that showed everyone who liked, shared or forwarded a post with fake news about Covid-19 a link to the WHO page with reliable information did not work.
To understand the scale: according to Avaaz, the network of 82 pages from at least 5 countries generated combined 3.82 billion views on Facebook. The pick activity was recorded in April (460 million views). But at least everyone will has the new layout and, as the first comments show, this decision may limit the spread of the fake news – many users declare that the new Facebook is so unintuitive and illegible that they will just give it up completely.
WM
source: defence24.pl / Stop Fake
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