Is Social Media a Threat to Democracy? ISSUES: Focusing on Six Key Risks Issue Two: Proliferation of several types of misinformation and disinformation and engagement with low regard for quality control or traditional journalistic ethics. A review of YouTube recommendations on the eve of the U.S. presidential election showed that “more than 80% of recommended videos were favorable to Trump, whether the initial query was ‘Trump’ or ‘Clinton.’ A large proportion of these recommendations were fake news.” Egregious instances of this phenomenon also include the Macedonian teenagers who mastered fake news to generate pocket money: stories in The Guardian and on BuzzFeed revealed that the Macedonian town of Veles (pop. 55,000) was the registered home of at least 100 proTrump websites, many of them filled with sensationalist, utterly fake news (the imminent criminal indictment of Hillary Clinton was a popular theme; another was the Pope’s approval of Trump.) Automated advertising engines, like Google’s AdSense, rewarded the sites’ ample traffic handsomely.12 Digital publications— including fake think tanks—that generate provocative and partisan content to resonate with users’ beliefs and biases are enabled by falling costs and easy access to advanced video and voice technologies. Nor is this a phenomenon restricted to one side of the political aisle. As recent articles by the The Atlantic, Buzzfeed and BBC document, at least in the U.S. and the UK in 2017, there has been a significant spike in the proliferation of disinformation campaigns and websites catering to the “left.”13 Social network platforms have huge incentives to accommodate the creation and distribution of content and feed the “attention economy.” And, unlike regulated media, there are no real consequences to these networks for distributing fake news (except in Germany, where lawmakers recently passed the much-debated Network Enforcement Act, which allows fines of up to $57M Samanth Subramanian, Inside the Macedonian Fake-News Complex, Wired, Published February 15, 2017, https://www.wired.com/2017/02/ veles-macedonia-fake-news/ 13 Laura Hazard Owen, Republicans seem more susceptible to fake news than Democrats (but liberals, don’t feel too comfy yet). NeimanLab. Published May 5, 2017, http://www.niemanlab.org/2017/05/ republicans-seem-more-susceptible-to-fake-news-than-democratsbut-liberals-dont-feel-too-comfy-yet/; and Zack Beauchamp Democrats are falling for fake news about Russia, Vox, Published May 19, 2017, https://www.vox.com/world/2017/5/19/15561842/trump-russialouise-mensch 14 That is, the underlying AI on platforms like YouTube and Facebook promotes these links because of their popularity, disregarding authenticity or relevance. 15 Furthermore, it fits well with previous successful strategies used by motivated actors (like the Tobacco industry) to refute findings that threaten their business model/vote bank/etc. 16 The Edelman Trust survey found that respondents are four times more likely to deliberately ignore information that does not support 12 © Copyright The Omidyar Group 2017. All rights reserved. against social media companies that don’t remove “obviously illegal” content on their sites within 24 hours). Fake news helps maximize ad-click revenue by keeping users on the platform.14 This phenomenon has not emerged in a vacuum; decades of declining trust in the mainstream media have created an opening for these alternative sources of news.15 Troublingly, studies have shown that it is very challenging to persuade people with facts once they have adopted a belief or position because of confirmation bias16 and the “backfire effect;”17 this helps maintain the atmosphere of confusion and competing reality. Findings such as in the API study mentioned above cast doubt on whether current fact-checking models are focused on the right locus of trust and belief. Indeed, some types of mis-and disinformation have serious ramifications for public dialogue and trust. Facebook has sought to set up a mechanism to allow fact-checkers to indicate when an article has been disputed, though in some cases such a flag has resulted in wider readership.18 The Omidyar Group has funded extensive research by academics in partnership with the news industry, as well as work on understanding the prevalence and dynamics of such issues, to better prepare responses that will combat this phenomenon.19 We have also provided support to the International Fact-Checking Network to bring together journalistic fact checkers and advanced practices globally.20 But there is still much work to be done with regard addressing the powerful monetary motivation that drives social media algorithms, seemingly at the expense of civility, truth and constructive conversation. a position they believe in. Furthermore, people often overestimate their ability to identify fake news—a Pew study found that 23% of Americans had shared fake news, in some cases even after knowing it was fake. 17 Craig Silverman, The Backfire Effect, Columbia Journalism Review, Published June 17, 2011, http://archives.cjr.org/behind_the_news/ the_backfire_effect.php 18 Sam Levin, Facebook promised to tackle fake news. But the evidence shows it’s not working, The Guardian, Published May 16, 2017, https://www. theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/16/facebook-fake-newstools-not-working 19 American Press Institute, Fact checking research, https://www. americanpressinstitute.org/fact-checking-research-studies; and Brendan Nyhan, Why More Democrats Are Now Embracing Conspiracy Theories, The New York Times, Published February 15, 2017, https:// www.nytimes.com/2017/02/15/upshot/why-more-democrats-arenow-embracing-conspiracy-theories.html 20 Poynter, The International Fact-Checking Network, https://www. poynter.org/about-the-international-fact-checking-network/ PAGE 8