video.foxnews.com
...Thus my comment about "provably false content", Facts are facts, regardless of how bad one political party or the other wishes that not to be the case, depending on the circumstance.
But the way each news report describes the "facts" and the varied importance and prioritization of details can change a story entirely, even if the facts are the same in each.
It seems that conservatives complaining want Facebook, et al, to guarantee them an audience. In the real world, that doesn't happen. Again, the top 10 most shared posts are almost always conservative.
Agreed wholeheartedly, but that's not a problem for Facebook and other social media platforms to concern themselves with. If the sky is blue and MSNBC or Fox News or a dozen Facebook memes say the sky is purple, that doesn't change the fact that the sky is blue. If FB or other platforms pick up on several users spreading memes full of falsehoods or fake stories on their sites, especially those that are going viral to the point they could change public opinion (or and election) based on something that's blatantly and provably false, regardless of whether it may make their company unpopular with those on one end of the political spectrum or the other, or whether it may spark outrage from one political party or the other, it's their duty to ensure it's labeled in such a way that people reading and sharing that post know it's false, or to remove the content.
Was it proper that the government broke up Standard Oil or AT&T?
I keep reading here and there about these apparent Russian 'bots' spreading rumors that swayed elections, but never see any concrete evidence that any of them ever changed a vote. The rumors of election fraud during 2020 weren't from Russian bots. The night of the election, and shortly afterwards, I saw videos on social media taken by Americans of boxes of ballots, locked doors to election centers, etc.
I don't know how they even realistically break up Facebook. It would make businesses have to "write checks" to both Facebook and Instagram for starters. It also doesn't solve "my conspiracy theories aren't getting an audience".
The information and evidence I saw published was from back when the only point of the investigation was (and I'm paraphrasing here) "Was there interference from other countries or outside entities in the 2016 election?" I'm not sure they went so far as to ask how many were influenced or swayed by it, but they did publish a number of Facebook memes, items from Twitter and the like, showing posts that were meant to stir the pot, spread blatantly false information and create a strong emotional response. Those items did exactly that and spread, at least somewhat unchecked, like wildfire. It was proven that they did originate from Russia or other foreign countries and were intended to influence the 2016 election and sow division among the US population. If their end goal was to sow further division than was present prior to 2016 and further drive a wedge, judging from what we see nearly every day in this country anymore, their methods were certainly effective.
And Verizon and T-Mobile and dozens of resellers as well as Internet based VOIP services by the dozen.
I'm reminded of Humpty Dumpty: so many pieces and alternatives.
You're correct, and that exact point is a huge part of the problem. End users either don't or won't do such fact checking on their own before posting or sharing FB memes or posts at will, so now it becomes the responsibility of FB and other social media platforms to step up and do it. Political stuff aside, I can't tell you the amount of drivel I see in my FB feed all the time, much of it false or long debunked, and some of these items have been recirculating even back before the days of FB when people were sending these things around via group e-mails. Stuff like, Mr. Rogers was a bad-ass marine before he had his TV show for kids (false), if you're being robbed at an ATM, enter your PIN backwards and the cops will come and save you (false), Richard Gere stuffed a gerbil up his hind end (false as far as we know), don't flash your headlights at oncoming cars as people will kill you as part of a gang initiation (false). And though annoying, those items I just mentioned aren't really hurting anyone or influencing public narrative or potentially election outcomes...It just illustrates how much people do spread this stuff often, though it's been debunked in some cases for several years. People have Google searches and sites like Snopes at their fingertips, but don't use them.