Facebook's design makes it unable to control fake news, suggests a new study.
When misinformation flourished online during the COVID-19 pandemic, several social media platforms announced policies and practices aimed at combating the spread.
New research, published in the journal Science Advances suggests that the COVID-19 vaccine misinformation policies of Facebook, the world’s largest social media platform, failed to stop misinformation.
The study found that Facebook’s efforts were "undermined" by the core design features of the platform itself.
The research team say it is the first and only scientific evaluation of the efficacy of Facebook's attempt to systematically remove misinformation and misinformative accounts.
Lead author Professor David Broniatowski, of George Washington University, said: “There is significant attention given to social media platforms and artificial intelligence governance today.
"However, this discussion largely focuses on either content or algorithms.
"To effectively tackle misinformation and other online harms, we need to move beyond content and algorithms to also focus on design and architecture.
“Our results show that removing content or changing algorithms can be ineffective if it doesn't change what the platform is designed to do – enabling community members to connect over common interests – in this case, vaccine hesitancy – and find information that they are motivated to seek out.”
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Professor Lorien Abroms, also of George Washington University, said: “This finding - that people were equally likely to engage with vaccine misinformation before and after Facebook’s extensive removal efforts - is incredibly concerning.
"It shows the difficulty that we face as a society in removing health misinformation from public spaces.”