Report Claims Facebook Could Have Stopped Billions of Election Misinformation Views
A new Avaaz report reveals that Facebook's delayed algorithm changes allowed 10.1 billion views of 2020 election misinformation. Facebook strongly disputes the study's methodology and defends its content moderation efforts.
A new report from the online advocacy group Avaaz reveals that Facebook could have prevented an estimated 10.1 billion views of misinformation related to the 2020 U.S. election. The study accuses the social media platform of creating the conditions that lead the country from a contentious election to an insurrection. According to the findings, Facebook's failure to adjust its algorithms earlier allows false and toxic content to run rampant on the network.
During the summer of 2020, the top 100 "repeat misinformers" receive significantly more interactions on Facebook than the top 100 traditional U.S. media pages combined. Avaaz defines these repeat misinformers as pages that share at least three pieces of misinformation, as determined by Facebook's own third-party fact-checkers, and refuse to correct their posts. Campaign director Fadi Quran emphasizes that this data represents a highly conservative estimate since it excludes Facebook Groups and the wider universe of misinformation.
Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone strongly disputes the report's methodology and accuses Avaaz of distorting the company's serious work to combat violent extremism and misinformation. Stone argues that it is unfair to label all content on a page as problematic just because it shares one piece of fact-checked content. He maintains that Facebook does more than any other internet company to fight harmful content, pointing to its bans on militarized movements like QAnon and the removal of millions of misinformation posts.