News Feed FYI: Addressing Hoaxes and Fake News

"Share what you want with your friends / family etc." This is why this case is different. If I use ExxonMobilBook, I kind of know what to expect of Greenpeace related stories.

Given their size, extra-precaution needs to be taken. They either need to rollback, or make their agenda more appearent.

These platforms only function because advertisements and political messaging have to be seen, and are seen, as credible and native to the content being traded by the people using the platform.

Users are trained to uncritically believe the things that show up on their feed, because if they were trained to be skeptical they would the platform would go bankrupt.

Similarly, news media requires readers to have full faith - almost ideological allegiance - in what they are reporting, while at the same time they need an uncritical readership so that they can promote political and consumer advertisements, sponsored and 'earned' content promotion and opinion pieces as though they were fact.

The entire industry functions on the basis of gullible and uncritical readership, media allegiance and sponsored content.

The industry has fallen to extremely low credibility ratings, and a series of nonsense and unpredictive and obvious reporting out of the 'most credible' parts of the industry have left a vacuum whereby readers do not know what to believe, and so accept whatever is most convenient and most readily available.

The solution is to create a credible news media industry, with no sponsored or partner content, no PR, no government propaganda, and where the readers (and skimmers) are the customers who pay for the information. The industry should compete to provide context and reliable information, and readership should be encouraged to be skeptical of the information presented to them at all times.

Maintaining the current mispractice of the poorly functioning industry and adding protectionist measures, gatekeeping and sponsored fact-checkers is not going to solve the problem.

"I'll tell them what to think" is not a solution to "these people are gullible."

They're not policing what you share with your friends, just what you can do on their platform. They are under no obligation to provide infinite reach for whatever drivel you want to share.

If you're sitting in a bar sharing racist anecdotes with your friends, that bar has the right to kick you out if they feel like. It's their bar.

If you don't like what Facebook's policies, go share somewhere else. There's even an alt-right social network you'll fit right in on.

> The problem is that they are not open. My only problem is opacity.

They're completely open about it. They've posted multiple stories about how they're addressing this, will provide links to third-party analysis for any flagged stories, and list the criteria for third-party fact-checking. [0]

> Moreover they coordinate with politics, so this has everything to do with the Bill of Rights at this point.

No, it does not. The Bill of Rights restrains what the government can do, it has nothing to do with what individual corporations can do.

Do you also think Smith & Wesson should be required to provide free guns, since the right to bear arms is in the constitution?

[0] http://www.poynter.org/fact-checkers-code-of-principles/

It is not "opinion" on whether the Pope endorsed Trump. It is unequivocal fact that he did not. Reporting to the contrary is fake news.

> But Politifact labels it "mostly false" because it was never proven to have come directly from her.

These statements are mutually incompatible. There can't be a long history of documentation for something which is proven.

Start your own fact-checker. Your examples just affirm that Politifact is doing it's job correctly.