Exclusive: Facebook Opens Up About False News | WIRED

Also see How Facebook Wants to Improve the Quality Of Your News Feed for a related interview

"The central message of the film is that Facebook really does care profoundly about false news. The company was slow to realize the pollution building up in News Feed, but now it is committed to cleaning it up. Not only does Facebook care, it’s got young, dedicated people who are on it. They’re smart, too. John Hegeman, who now runs News Feed, helped build the Vickrey-Clark-Groves auction system for Facebook advertising, which has turned it into one of the most profitable businesses of all time.

The question for Facebook, though, is no longer whether it cares. The question is whether the problem can be solved. News Feed has been tuned, for years, to maximize our attention and in many ways our outrage. The same features that incentivized publishers to create clickbait are the ones that let false news fly. News Feed has been nourishing the sugar plantations for a decade. Can it really help grow kale, or even apples?"

Exclusive: Facebook Opens Up About False News | WIRED