Facebook is the Last Mile of Media Publishing, and Should Act Like it

Facebook is the Last Mile of Media Publishing, and Should Act Like it

Mark Zuckerberg is a smart guy, and from most accounts, tries to do the right thing with his influential platform. Given the newness of social media, it must be challenging to figure out what that right thing is?—?especially when billions of dollars and the demands of share holders is on the line.

Recently Mr. Zuckerberg was quoted saying that he doesn’t think its Facebook’s job to fact check political speeches. I think he’s probably right, but only in one specific way. Facebook is not in the news media production business?—?they don’t write the news. But they are an intermediary (the root of the word “media”) just he same. Conceptually, they are at least as influential as any publisher, in choosing which content to show users. Practically, given current trends, they are more influential than any news outlet’s front page?—?or all of them combined. I’ve written previously about an important (easy to fix) mistake in their curation algorithm which leads to two information silos modeled largely on a reductionist idea of America’s 2 parties— left vs. right, Democratic Party vs. Republican Party. That’s one half of the problem, and they should address it. But they also have some responsibility to promote fact based reporting, and thwart misinformation, just like any other media publisher. They don’t write content, but they certainly do promote it, selectively, to each and every user.

Fact based news coverage is not sexy, but is essential for functioning democracy, and it requires credible, authoritative, expert validation. By many accounts, people “like” negative, bias confirming, often factually inaccurate posts more often than they “like” positive, moderate and factual posts. This is not a problem created by social media. Over the last 40 years fact reporting and investigative journalism has declined, as bombastic opinion writing and increasingly partisan infotainment and editorial has taken up the slack, in an attempt to capture both political influence and profit. It turns out, people are more motivated by in-group dynamics than reason, and catering to that is more profitable than not?—?for all media. It’s in this context that social media has the power to either enhance, or blunt the power of misinformation. Facebook’s current curation model, and decision to keep driving forward, enhances the problem, rather than curtailing it. Doing nothing is not doing nothing in Facebook’s case.

Facebook, whether Mr. Zuckerberg likes it or not, has embedded itself in the last mile of the publishing pipeline for much of the news media citizens consume. Facebook should do the work to balance their own profit needs, vs. the impact they have on their users’ perception of the facts. Social media is media.