If you listen to Facebook defend itself, its argument boils down to the following: We’re doing our best. We know about the problems on our platform, and we’re doing all we can to address them. “I don’t think anyone can claim we haven’t taken a lot of exceptional measures to meet those very exceptional circumstances,” Facebook Vice President Nick Clegg asserted last month on “Meet the Press.”
As a point of fact, however, when it comes to misinformation on its platform, Facebook is not doing all it can. There are several measures the company could take to confront the problem that, so far, it has refused to take. These measures aren’t exceptional. Some of them — such as proactively putting clarifying fact checks directly in front of users who have previously been exposed to misinformation — are, in fact, quite simple. And our research makes clear that, when it comes to tackling misinformation, these measures can work.