Facebook employees start secret ‘task force’ to examine fake news allegations

RENEGADE Facebook employees have formed an unofficial task force to look into claims that fake stories helped Donald Trump win the election.

Mark Zuckerberg has rejected claims that fake stories shared on the social network helped steer President-elect Donald Trump to victory.

LAST WEEK, Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg rejected claims that fake stories shared on the social network helped steer President-elect Donald Trump to victory.

However, it appears not everyone agrees, with employees of Facebook taking matters into their own hands — forming an unofficial task force to look into the allegations.

The argument that fake news on Facebook affected the election was dubbed as a “pretty crazy idea” from Mr Zuckerberg himself last week.

This was refuted by an employee from Facebook’s engineering division who spoke anonymously on the subject matter.

“It’s not a crazy idea. What’s crazy is for him to come out and dismiss it like that, when he knows, and those of us at the company know, that fake news ran wild on our platform during the entire campaign season,” he told BuzzFeed News.

Renegade Facebook employees have formed an unofficial task force

He was one of five employees that spoke under condition of anonymity, after they were warned against speaking to the media by their superiors.

While speaking out, the employees were still largely secretive about the task force.

One employee said “more than dozens” of staff at Facebook were involved and said the group had already met twice in the past week.

Currently, the group meet in secret for fear of losing their jobs if senior management became aware.

Despite the risks, the group hope to be able to collect enough evidence so they can put forward recommendations to Facebook’s senior management.

One member added that although the task force was small, “hundreds” of staff members have used private online chats to voice concern over the company’s stance on fake news.

The results of this group are yet to be seen, but time will tell if it results in any lasting change.