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Facebook Fake News in the Post-Truth World by Benjamin Weinstock

1. Business: What business is Facebook in? Are technology and media businesses

fundamentally different?

According to the CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook identifies itself as a

company associated to technology more so than media. Zuckerberg easily established and

differentiated Facebook as a tech company during the Fake News crisis back in the year of

2016. It is clear that this distinction follows the ideals of avoiding being regulated into

oblivion. Facebook has fought long and hard to remove the label of media company so as to

avoid governmental regulation and reside within the grey area as a tech company which

allows them to certain regulations.

Tech companies function on the primary goal of bring people scattered all across the globe

together. They are, essentially, a set of tools which allows individuals to build on connection.

However, Facebook, in attempt to establish itself as a tech company, does only that. The

moral responsibility of what is shared and why is it shared is propped up to fall upon our

shoulders.
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2. Responsibility: If Facebook is not in the media business, as Zuckerberg says, what is

Facebook's responsibility for media content? What is the responsibility of any

outsourcer for the output and practices of the offshore or onshore contractor?

Since Mark Zuckerberg has established Facebook as a tech company, he basically distances

himself from the moral responsibility that follows the sharing of media content. The presence

of Facebook as a tech company makes it an outsourcer of media content which is currently

being shared on it feed. The consequences which may be imposed on account of the

ambiguous space within which conversation is carried out is diverted rather to the individual

source than the platform which enables them.

A media company can easily be held responsible for the content being shared within and on

its platform, given that the main goal of a media company is to share and regulate content.

However, a tech company accounts for only the platform. So, keeping in mind this definition,

Facebook does not have much responsibility and should not, perhaps, be held accountable for

the content shared given it does not identify as a media company.

3. Fake News: Go into your Facebook account (If you are not on Facebook, go into

News on your iPhone or LG or whatever). What are the newsfeeds you have access

to? Who owns those feeds? Who supplies news to those feeds? Do an investigation of

3 of them. See if you can find something you didn’t know about the trustworthiness

of that newsfeeds.

The newsfeed that I currently have access to include Google News, Twitter and Facebook. The

feeds are owned by Google Inc., Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg, respectively.
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Google News happens to be an aggregator for news which had been developed by Google for the

presentation of continuous and customizable flow of news from different sources all around the

world. The Google news is practically an outsourcer of news and often reports news which have

been published on other presumably credible sources.

Twitter is perhaps a feed which faces the least of regulations. As someone who personally uses

Twitter myself, the news and media content shared on the timeline is often not credible and

shared primarily through individuals themselves. Therefore, it is easier to understand how twitter

has separated itself with regard to moral responsibility.

Through this case study, I have been made aware that Facebook and the content share on it is on

the conscience of those who share it. Therefore, it does lack when it comes to credibility.

4. Talent/Organization Structure: What kind of talent does Facebook hire? How were

Facebook's teams organized at the beginning? How has that organization changed

in light of the scandal?

Facebook focused on maintaining an “entrepreneurial, hacker culture” [ CITATION Joh19 \l 1033 ].

The space of working in Facebook defied with conventional ideas regarding work spaces. There

was a sense of transparency within the firm which further allowed the executives to maintain the

hacker and entrepreneurial culture. The teams were based on the individuals working within the

firm. The like button, for instance, was an offering of a team of three. The innovations, at least

the majority of them, were developed during “hackathons” (p.7). Any individual could easily

work with anyone else. The hiring process believed in hiring smart people and build on their

strengths.
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However, in light of the scandal, Facebook started to focus on a more connected platform of

sharing. The sense of privacy was increased and the environment of an open space was

diminished.

5. Costs and Investments: why have Facebook's R&D expenditure risen 32.4% from

2017 to 2018? Why have marketing sales risen 66%? What is Facebook spending

on, given the subject of this case?

Facebook, after the heaps of scandals it encountered, invested greatly in developing new features

which either attracted consumers or ensured that existing users stayed within the user base. The

company introduced multiple on-connections which sought to ease in the use of Facebook for

nearly all user. The privacy aspect had been developed as well and a lot of efforts was channeled

into regulating and preventing fake news.

The marketing sales rose given the attention Facebook received. Facebook introduced a lot of

add-ons such as Facebook Dating, etc. and spread its reach from only Facebook’s platform to

Instagram and WhatsApp giving more room for advertisements.

Facebook as of lately has focused its spending on innovation and privacy which seeks to lure in

new users and ensure privacy of those that exist.

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References
Wells, John R., Carole A. Winkler and Benjamin Weinstock. "Facebook Fake News in the Post-Truth
World ." 2019.