Mark Zuckerberg says he's working to get fake news, hoaxes off Facebook

(Image credit: David Ramos/Getty Images)

last updated 14 November 2016

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is promising users to do what he can to keep fake news and hoaxes off the social network.

The goal of Facebook is to "give every person a voice," Zuckerberg wrote on his Facebook page late Saturday night, and after the election, people are asking if fake news contributed to the result and if Facebook has any responsibility to prevent such false information from spreading. "Out of all the content on Facebook, more than 99 percent of what people see is authentic," he said. "Only a very small amount is fake news and hoaxes. The hoaxes that do exist are not limited to one partisan view, or even to politics." While overall it is "extremely unlikely" hoaxes had any effect on the election, Zuckerberg said, he doesn't want any hoaxes on the site, period.

"Our goal is to show people the content they will find most meaningful, and people want accurate news," he said. "We have already launched work enabling our community to flag hoaxes and fake news, and there is more we can do here." Zuckerberg said Facebook will share with users the changes they might eventually make to the News Feed, adding he's "proud" of the role the company took in the election, including helping "more than 2 million people register to vote" and connecting people to candidates "so they could hear from them directly and be better informed."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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