Fake news is a problem on Facebook, these employees say, and they want to fix it

Facebook employees looking to tackle an issue they feel is being ignored by CEO Mark Zuckerberg have started a secret task force to combat fake news being shared on the social network, BuzzFeed News reports.

More than 150 million Americans use the site, and since the election, there's been much talk about faux news being shared by users. Zuckerberg called it a "pretty crazy idea" to think this affected the election, but "it's not a crazy idea," a Facebook employee who works in the engineering division told BuzzFeed News. "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."

The Pew Research Center found that about 50 percent of American adults rely on Facebook as a source of news, and an earlier BuzzFeed News report found that three large left-wing pages published false or misleading information in almost 20 percent of their posts, while three big right-wing pages published false or misleading information 38 percent of the time.

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The employees who spoke with BuzzFeed News said they have met twice in the past week, and there are "more than dozens" participating. They are meeting privately so they can speak freely, and eventually they will put together a list of recommendations to give to Facebook's senior management. The task force is also looking into whether Facebook used enough of its resources to respond to reports of fake news, or used features that can automatically scan the site for offensive content. One employee said that the task force is small, but "hundreds" of colleagues have shared in private chats that they disagree with the company's stance on fake news. Another employee made it clear they were not taking political sides, they just didn't think it was fair to "highlight fake news articles in their feed, to promote them so they get millions of shares by people who think they are real.... Facebook is getting played by people using us to spread their bullsh-t."