This isn't correct. The law in most modern democracies, as far as I'm aware, is very concerned with intent.
This why we generally define murder and manslaughter as distinct.
Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder
Manslaughter is a common law legal term for homicide considered by law as less culpable than murder
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manslaughter
Murder vs manslaughter is the extreme example, though you'll find courts are broadly quite concerned with intent.
The information is out there. There are reliable news sources. There are reliable databases and encyclopaedias and journalism. If people choose not to read them then that's on them.
The problem is, Facebook doesn’t show people content that they want to see. They show people content that they will engage with. That’s a very important distinction.
HN algorithm/moderators actually explicitly do the opposite: if a thread gets too many comments too quickly, it’s ranked downward. The assumption is too many comments too quickly indicates a flamewar and the HN moderators want to keep a civil discussion. The approach Facebook takes is to “foster active discussion” which on the Internet typically means a flamewar. Noting generates engagement like controversial political views. So that’s what Facebook’s algorithm/moderators show to their users.
Facebook absolutely is a social conditioning tool, it’s designed from the ground up to show people content that stirs their emotions enough to click “like” or the mad face icon or even leave a comment and wait around until someone replies back.
I think it is far worse to attempt to condition people by showing them things *they wouldn't otherwise engage with". What is scarier, showing somebody something they want to engage in based on their past behaviour, or showing somebody something they wouldn't have otherwise seen if you hadn't gone out of your way to shove it down their throat?
People seem to want Facebook to make people more placid. Oh you have extreme views? Here's, let's condition that out of you by only showing you more moderate stuff. Oh you think x is bad? Let's not show you anything to do with x so that you'll hopefully forget about it and not engage with that part of your brain any more.
Like I've already said, this alternative is far more Orwellian and far more of a tool for social control, than simply optimising for engagement.
I don't think that makes sense, and I don't think that's what anyone's advocating for.
If you friend someone, or follow a page, or whatever, you are explicitly saying "I want to hear what this person/group has to say". They aren't saying "I want FB to carefully curate what this person/group says in order to increase my engagement of FB". FB shouldn't promote, hide, or reorder anything coming from someone who I've explicitly chosen to follow. It should just show me all of it, and let me decide what I do and don't want to see.
https://www.facebook.com/business/help/2593586717571940?id=673052479947730
https://www.fastcompany.com/90538655/facebook-is-quietly-pressuring-its-independent-fact-checkers-to-change-their-rulings
Propaganda, misinformation and deception have always been human issue - mass media magnified them as it does everything else.
And I think we all have the right to critique social media, just like we can critique the news, books, movies, etc.
We don’t have to agree but the discussion is a valid one to have!
We get to help shape our society and world, after all :).
If I build a bridge intending it to stay up and it happens to fall down 6 months later, I'm responsible for it. Facebook created an algorithm that divides people politically and that surfaces content that is provably fictional. So they should be held responsible for it regardless of their intent. They don't get to invoke "common carrier" status when they're writing software that makes decisions about what you do or don't see. What makes a telephone a "common carrier" is the fact that the telephone doesn't decide who you call.
It doesn't matter whether it's software or a human. What matters is that decisions are being made by Facebook about what you do or don't see.
Whether or not it is intentional is immaterial to the effect. The law doesn't care about your intent. I wouldn't intentionally dump toxic waste into a river but I'm liable for dumping whether I intended to or not. Mark Zuckerberg can't just throw up his hands and go "oops it's software I can't help it" when it's his company that made all of the decisions about how the software works.