Facebook is a massive enabler for the spread of fake news/hate speech. I do not doubt that there are problems in society, but Facebook needs to be held accountable for its (in)action.

Should paper manufacturers be responsible for the content that’s printed? Should ink manufacturers be held liable for what people do with it? Should the post office be held liable for messages being mailed? Remember — Facebook is voluntary. Nobody is forced to be there and if there are uncomfortable messages to which you are being exposed, turn it off. Sign out. Quit using it.

You seem to have an almost hysterical reaction to this story. Why are you so sensitive? Did Nazis and violence and Red Brigade terrorists and Communists and racists and Islamic extremists not spread their messages effectively before Facebook? Has the rate of violence from these groups increased since Facebook?

I don’t have stats in front of me, but I would argue that violence, terrorism and hate has decreased since Facebook. Sure we hear more about it now, but that’s a result of media penetration and not an actual increase in incidents. I would invite data that suggests otherwise.

One might argue that awareness of hate groups has increased because of Facebook thus leading to increased marginalization of their ideas.

Blaming the medium for the message is fascinating. The disease of hate and totalitarianism spread quite effectively before Facebook. We might argue that Facebook has actually reduced such things because it provides a marketplace where ideas can be evaluated and either accepted or shunned much more efficiently.

Banning the communication of ideas doesn’t stop the communication of ideas. We learned that from Solzhenitsyn. We should encourage more openness, less censorship. Sunlight disinfects.

You make some good points. It's curious to see people attacking Facebook so vehemently, as if using it were somehow obligatory. I don't see much appeal in Facebook myself, but I don't feel the need to force my views on others. Is the Overton window shifting toward outright censorship? It's an interesting question.

Your comment was downvoted a lot though. Must've hit a nerve :-)

> Should paper manufacturers be responsible for the content that’s printed

No, but publishers should be, and they are. FB is a publisher, a distributor of content. They are not the creator of electrons or LED displays via which your content is distributed, which would be the closest analogy to your paper and ink manufacturer.

No, the real publisher is that dumbass Facebook friend of mine, who shared a "fake news" story. And that dumbass Facebook friend of yours who saw the post of my dumbass friend and reshared it further.

That's the writer, the publisher is the entity providing the means of distribution. That's FB.

I don't see how they can do that. There is little qualitative difference between what you probably mean by "fake news" and the stuff that mainstream news outlet put out. To stay safe, Facebook would either have to refuse allowing any news content on their site, or else turn into a world's leading intelligence agency / think tank to validate all of it.

The qualitative difference is that traditional news outlets are held accountable for their "fake news". The New York Times tries not to publish untrue claims, and if it does, it will retract them and issue a correction or apology. If it won't do that, there are libel laws and other legal remedies.

Fake news on social media is subject to none of these controls. Facebook is a multiplier of some of the worst tendencies of human beings, and it lacks the institutions that the rest of society has evolved over centuries to contain those tendencies.

Facebook is not a publisher like the New York Times is, and it's very disingenuous to suggest otherwise.

I don't think it matters really. If Facebook's current practices cause, enable, or magnify harm to society, then there are levers that should be pulled to minimize that harm.

Facebook is, in part, a tool for distributing misleading information on a massive scale. We control tools that cause harm even if those tools are inert or even beneficial if they're not used by malicious people. Facebook has no institutional or economic reason to reduce the harm it causes, and it's the role of government to reduce harm when the market has failed to do so.

I think the commenter is making the point that they have grown to a level unsustainable to deal with the issue of exposing it's users to fake, hateful, or abusive content.

No, the crazies finding each other and organizing is entire FB's fault.

Facebook is making this easier because it makes keeping with touch and finding people easier. But Facebook is only an incremental step forward here; the objection you're raising should be aimed at the entire Internet. It's the Internet that lets crazies find each other and organize; before Facebook, it was other sites, other services.

I'd go one step further - that's just consequence of better communication. You can't have one without the other. If you make life easier for everyone, you're also making life easier for the crazies, and for the bad guys. Personally, I'd still say it's worth it.

Are you being sarcastic? Sometimes it's hard to tell online.

Not really. I think this phenomenon is well documented at this point. How else would fake news spread so easily across social media? Everyone has a couple of crazies in their social circle, and they will broadcast false statements as facts. Due to a human cognitive quirk, we lend more credence to propositions we hear from multiple sources. The "crazies" that already believe in nonsense already do this on reflex. And so the crazy spreads, even to otherwise reasonable people.

That's not what you said. What you said was

> The crazies finding each other and organizing is entire FB's fault.

If it is entirely Facebook's fault, how come this phenomenon predates Facebook and exists outside of it?

People got sick before the great flu pandemic of 1912, therefore the flu was not responsible for the 1912 flu pandemic.

Do you see the problem with this argument? FB was rapidly accelerated the organization of these types of extreme positions. My original comment follows from my last comment. What do you think the crazies do when they've gotten all outraged at some false proposition or other?

> People got sick before the great flu pandemic of 1912, therefore the flu was not responsible for the 1912 flu pandemic.

That's not the right analogy. This is closer to what you said:

Human epidemics are entirely the fault of the great flu pandemic of 1912.

An even closer analogy to what you said is:

Human epidemics are entirely the fault of widespread transportation networks. Ergo we ought to abolish such networks.

Err, no. I never said crazies never found each other before, I said the pandemic of crazies finding each other and organizing now are the fault of FB (and other social media of course).

Then it is not "entirely" Facebook's fault, as you suggested. Such hyperbole obscures rather than illuminates truth.

Do you have any empirical evidence to back this "pandemic" claim of yours? Or is that just a feeling you have?

"That house was flammable all on its own, all I did was provide a match".

That analogy makes no sense to me. Can you clarify what you mean by this?

"all I did was being first to provide a match, in the town of Internet, where everyone is a distributor of matches."