Social platforms are culpable for fake news but culpability is not remediation

Evidence

One natural response to fake news is to say that social media sites, web search providers, and news aggregators have a responsibility to identify fake news and stop it. It was, after all, a Facebook algorithm that actively promoted a fake story, hosted on ETF News, about Megyn Kelly. … We fully endorse this solution: organizations like Facebook, Twitter, and Google are responsible for the rampant spread of fake news on their platforms over the past several years—and, ultimately, for the political, economic, and human costs that resulted. But assigning culpability is not the same as identifying solutions. — Cailin O’Connor and James Owen Weatherall, The Misinformation Age, 577

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Anti-fake-news measures will be gamed once they become targets — Cailin O’Connor and James Owen Weatherall, The Misinformation Age: How False…, 581; Journalism’s truth-falsehood distinction directly opposes platforms’ radical indifference to content — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1610; Social media amplifies rather than causes pre-existing biases in susceptible users (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Social media amplifies rather than causes pre-existing biases in susceptible users #complicates (0.80)
• Journalism’s truth-falsehood distinction directly opposes platforms’ radical indifference to content #expands (0.78) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1610