Exactly.

Consider that Facebook has entire teams of people dedicated to figuring out what behavior is compatible with their business model, and they also have more direct data about where revenue comes from than any of us here do (at least those of us not bound by a Facebook NDA!). There's probably a PM whose entire job is just putting together these reports and they're getting a Facebook salary for doing so. It's definitely possible they're all misguided, but they're a very successful company and they've probably considered the tradeoffs of investing in these efforts versus not.

Also, consider that e.g. 4chan is making nowhere near as much revenue as Facebook, despite also providing a forum for people to post things and selling ads next to those posts.

It's just a game. Someone at Facebook is trying to min/max the numbers to get as much money as possible. It's just plain to see that one of the consequences of winning this dumb game is that they are completely destroying the concept of truth with one hand while insisting with the other that they are publishing the truth. That's the optimal strategy to make the most money, but all the money in the world isn't worth destroying trust in information.

Sure - "stop doing this because, despite being profitable, it's bad for society" is an entirely reasonable take. (Though perhaps one should figure out how to incentivize that action.) "Stop doing this because it's not profitable," from an outsider, doesn't make sense.

> Advertisers will demand not be shown alongside info which is 'inaccurate'.

I find that unlikely: Facebook has an enormous amount of dis- and mis-information, and an enormous amount of advertising. Have you noticed that Facebook pages with inaccurate information lack advertising?

In regard to immediate revenue, advertisers just don't want to be embarrassed.

I checked out other "free speech" sites which regularly publish misinformation and lies (yet still insist that they are publishing the truth) and they still have ads. Breitbart, Newsmax. Alex Jones infowars platform primarily exists to sell supplements. Even Coast to Coast AM, the ghosts and goblins show, still runs ads.

Plus you have to consider that there is big money to be made lying to the public. For instance the Koch brothers spend a pretty penny funding climate denial.