Hyperpartisan Facebook Pages Are Publishing False and Misleading Information

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BuzzFeed News:

However, during the time period analyzed, we found that right-wing pages were more prone to sharing false or misleading information than left-wing pages. Mainstream pages did not share any completely false information, but did publish a small number of posts that included unverified claims. (More on that below.)

We rated 86 out of a total 666 right-wing Facebook posts as mostly false, for a percentage of 13%. Another 167 posts (25%) were rated as a mixture of true and false. Viewed separately or together (38%), this is an alarmingly high percentage.

Left-wing pages did not earn as many “mostly false” or “mixture of true and false” ratings, but they did share false and misleading content. We identified 22 mostly false posts out of a total of 471 from these pages, which means that just under 5% of left-wing posts were untrue. We rated close to 14% of these posts (68) a mixture of true and false. Taken together, nearly a fifth of all left-wing posts we analyzed were either partially or mostly false.
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Facebook, what are you doing? This is where a shocking number of people get their “news” and at this rate a huge part of it is literal bullshit.

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Misleading news on Facebook? I'm speechless!!!! Like this status if you agree.

 

The inaccurate news is not literal bullshit. This post is a mixture of true and false.

 

yeah, facebook should really look at this. im gonna need them to start censoring things that they deem "false" and promote things that they deem "true".

 

They are basically going to have to ban memes. That's where most people get their misinformation. No one reads articles anymore.

 

"Facebook, please erase everything that I don't like instead of letting people choose what to believe."

Go to China. That's where this idea of censorship belongs.

 

666 right-wing Facebook posts

 

lol imagine being this thick-skulled.

 

This is an absolute disaster for so many insidious reasons. Facebook needs to fix this as quickly as possible.

 

I know lots of people get news from Facebook but there are so many better ways. If you want reputable news you can get it from much better sources.

 

I don't think people necessarily seek it out on Facebook. It's just there in your face, and super convenient when you log on every day.

 

I would love this so much

 

What benefits come from facebook blocking posts that you don't want people to see just because they are not correct? The post don't offend anyone, they are not stomping on beliefs, they are not physically harming people. Both right-wingers and left-wingers post incorrect things on facebook in order to push their agenda and yet the billions of people on facbeook still go to work, sleep peacefully, and actually have lives that don't revolve around stressing over small things like this.

Does your ego grow and you feel warm because people may not grow different opinions that you do not value? Do you desire everyone to think just like you? Are you afraid of people being gullible and believing something that you don't put your stamp of approval on? Grow up and stop trying to dictate what everyone else can choose.

 

Why do you have a problem with people sharing memes and why do you want to take away the ability of people being able to post memes? What physical harm have they caused you?

 

I don't care what people's opinions are as long as they're not harming others, but being like "I want to be factually wrong" is a weird stance to take

 

It'd be cool if people used factual information to "push their agendas" though...

 

I'm sorry that my stance of "I don't enjoy seeing memes all the time" translated to "I am spearheading an effort to ban memes from the internet".

I'm very okay with memes being posted at this moment. I just also wouldn't mind if they weren't.

 

This. Getting worked up over things posted on facebook that literally do nothing except change the minds of insanely gullible people is wack.

 

oh you were serious

 

It doesn't matter to me how they do it. I don't see why it matters to anyone else. What people believe is their business. If people are gullible enough to fall for memes then they are not threats anyway.

 

"Let me just pretend this was all a joke so I can just laugh it off."

Wanting to censor people just because you're upset over memes is not a joke. It's the highest level of pettiness.

 

Okay, I understand that and memes do get pretty obnoxious. I usually unfollow people once they post a lot of annoying memes. I just thought you were in favor of facebook making it a policy from how I read your comment.

 

I'm not upset over memes. Wtf are you talking about? I'm laughing at you because you think the idea of fact checking articles is on the same level as government censorship. I'm writing half ass responses because I don't have time to explain ethics in journalism to you.

 

Yeah sorry I'm not trusting buzzfeed at all when it comes to news.