Google and Facebook’s fake news problem is too big to ignore
DURING the Las Vegas shooting, Facebook and Google’s algorithm allowed fake news to lead their sites. This cannot be tolerated, writes Ryan Northover.
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FACEBOOK and Google continue to fail the public.
Content from conspiracy theorists, propagandists and counterintelligence agents dressed up as breaking world news continues to be disseminated to millions every day — not just in the ‘dark web’ — but on the front pages of Google and Facebook.
In the midst of the historical controversy surrounding fake news and nefarious political interference around the globe, once again the US tech giants have let the public down.
This time it was in the hours after the Las Vegas massacre, as spotted by a number of journalists, including Buzzfeed reporter Ryan Broderick.
Google News’ Top Stories section displayed to millions of users a fake, conspiracy theorist story from 4Chan.org.
Also, apparently Google is putting 4chan threads in their top story unit now? So, the number one hit for his name is a /pol/ thread. pic.twitter.com/OYwW6pbWvy
— Ryan Broderick (@broderick) October 2, 2017
Facebook’s Trending Stories section and emergency check-in page also displayed false news stories from both alt-right US websites and Russian propaganda sources.
In the case of the Google News blunder — the search engine giant’s algorithm gave priority to a conspiracy theorist thread, a thread that named a person unrelated to the shooting as the suspect in the massacre, describing them as a Bernie Sanders loving leftist.
The false story quickly spread across the web and was even picked up by partisan media organisation The Gateway Pundit.
For context, misinformation is commonly and deliberately spread by 4 Chan users across the web, either to generate confusion, manipulate other users or to fool the mainstream media.
Content coming from 4 Chan appearing on any specialised news platform is ridiculous. Yet, it happened on Google.
Hours later, after questions from Journalist Alexis Madrigal, Google admitted that a chain of rumours posted to 4 Chan had appeared in the Top Stories section of Google News.
“This should not have appeared for any queries,” a Google spokesman later said.
“We’ll continue to make algorithmic improvements to prevent this from happening in the future.”
The algorithm again.
In another statement, posted by New York journalist William Turton, Google said they “use a number of signals to determine the ranking of results — this includes both the authoritativeness of a site…”
Let’s be clear, this conspiracy theorist chain passed off as news by Google wasn’t found deep into a Google search about the massacre. It was presented as a Top Story on Google.
It was also selected due to the “authority” of 4 Chan — a very well known conspiracy and disinformation site. Let that sink in for a minute.
Sadly, it only gets worse from here.
Over on Facebook, a false story was posted to the emergency news page set up to help people caught up in the same massacre.
The article was derived from the same conspiracy theory chain that was appearing on Google and it was here that the ultra-right wing political website, The Gateway Pundit, picked up the 4 Chan thread and published a story from the false information.
The story was then highlighted on Facebook’s Las Vegas emergency Crisis Response page.
The Gateway Pundit story was later deleted.
According to Fast Company, another blog, this time Alt Right News, also published an article based off of the 4 Chan thread, which also appeared on the Facebook emergency news page.
Let’s be clear: this emergency page was a place that thousands of Facebook users within the area of shooting were automatically directed to and asked to ‘check-in’ so that friends and family would know that they were safe and okay.
Presumably, while on the page, many survivors of the worst mass shooting in US history also saw the false story.
To add to that even further, a number of other false stories also appeared on Facebook from Russian conspiracy theory and propaganda network Sputnik News — this time on the Facebook Trending Stories feature bar, Forbes reported.
Facebook responded to the New York Times inquiry on the post-massacre fake story promotion by saying, “Our Global Security Operations Center spotted these posts this morning and we have removed them. However, their removal was delayed, allowing them to be screen-captured and circulated online.”
The spokesman continued, “We are working to fix the issue that allowed this to happen in the first place and deeply regret the confusion this caused.”
Right now, FB's trending topic page for the Las Vegas shooting features two (2) posts from a Russian propaganda outlet. pic.twitter.com/jDR1V0zzPy
— Kevin Roose (@kevinroose) October 2, 2017
It’s worth noting that in 2016, Facebook fired their team of human news curators, leaving the spread of news on Facebook entirely up to the algorithms. Meaning engineering and AI now determines what is and isn’t newsworthy.
Now, in what’s already been a very bad news week for Facebook, things are getting even worse.
The platform has now confirmed what millions suspected — that during the 2016 US election millions of American voters were not only reached by Russian propaganda ads, but that Russian counterintelligence-linked outlets also used Facebook’s marketing tools to micro-target voters.
These tactics included the use of custom audiences retargeting tools, user behaviour, website visits, geolocation and psychographic data farmed from multiple dubious sources and other web engagement tactics — all to influence the outcome of the election that ultimately saw Donald Trump named President of the United States of America.
CNN reported many of those ads targeted people in Michigan and Wisconsin — states where Trump was absolutely not expected to win but did.
Allowing fake news and conspiracy theorists content to enter news sections of Facebook and Google can no longer be tolerated. And blaming the algorithm won’t cut it.
This has become a major issue right around the world. The consequences of Facebook and Google not acting are grave — for public discourse, democracy, and for common decency.
The mainstream media, regulators and ultimately the public must apply intense pressure on these platforms to do more, and fast.
Ryan Northover is News Corp’s strategic social media manager.