Well, as long as we tolerate it. To the extent Americans (and others) live in a democracy and can pass laws to address social harms this situation is entirely our own fault.

Since most "fact" checking is legally a matter of opinion it's difficult to pass laws about it without running afoul of the 1st Amendment. We already have libel laws that allow private parties to seek damages in civil court for harmful false statements.

I'm always wary of throwing more laws at a problem. I'd much rather market forces solve it.

This seems like a statement of faith. Facebook, and the markets it operates in, have seen very little government oversight for most its lifetime. It's mostly market forces that got us here. I don't see any reason to think that market forces will improve the situation in the future.

I'd much rather put my faith in markets than any government. Markets persuade while governments enforce, usually with a gun.

Trusting corporations to behave requires trusting governments, because governments are the only reason corporations compete at all, versus simply collaborating and shaking people down like the mafia. You really don't want the monopoly on force to become a free market of force, that doesn't end well for the average consumer.

Agree in principle, but that becomes hard/impossible at the scale Facebook and friends operate at. Monopoly isn't the right term, but it's close.

I'd welcome laws that requires specific kinds of transparency and conduct at Facebook/Reddit/Twitter/YouTube user counts. Simply tie this conduct to S230 protections, and we evade all first amendment issues. The companies would do anything to avoid being responsible for the hateful, libelous, harassing, and terroristic content they convey every single day.

It's not credible to assume that this is a one-off instance of incompetence on Facebook's part, it's of a piece with all their other fact checking and moderation policies around this issue.

Fair enough, and if my original response made it seem that I was suggesting that this was a one-off I certainly didn't intend for it too - but I am willing to bet that the frequency of these will continue to increase and from more reputable sources.

Would you please stop posting unsubstantive and flamebait comments? We already had to ask you this recently.

p.s. I'm not defending Z or F, I'm saying that we don't want shallow dismissals or cheap putdowns. Thoughtful critique is welcome, of course.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html