Mark Zuckerberg and Mathias Doepfner were at the presentation of the first Axel Springer Award in February in Berlin, Germany. (Photo : Getty Images/Frank Zauritz -Pool)
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has once again reiterated that the social media platform would take additional measures to deal with fake news. At the same time, he refuted allegations that the site had helped Republican Donald Trump to win the U.S. presidential election.
Zuckerberg posted a message on his Facebook profile on Nov. 12, Saturday, saying that they plan to announce new initiatives soon to deal with fake stories on the social media platform. In his post, he wrote, "Of all the content on Facebook, more than 99% of what people see is authentic. Only a very small amount is fake news and hoaxes." He, however, said that it is very unlikely that hoaxes influenced the election results in the U.S. presidential election, BBC reported.
Zuckerberg stated that they have already begun initiatives that enable the users to flag hoaxes and fake news. While the initiative has been successful, he felt that there is more to be done. According to him, they will initiate new measures to ensure to improve Facebook and make it hoax-free.
In his long post, Zuckerberg clarified that the social media platform does not want any hoaxes, as their objective is to show users most meaningful content and accurate news. According to him, for more and more people worldwide, especially Americans, the site is turning out to be the primary source of news coverage. He asserted that the website was creating a "filter bubble," which reinforced one's views, but did not inject differences in opinion.
Earlier this year, some people accused the social media platform of being anti-Trump. The allegations came in the wake of claims that the human moderators of Facebook favored liberal stories in people's "trending stories" box. Although Facebook denied the allegation, the site sacked its human team, rather than only relying on an algorithm to settle on stories shown as most popular, The Guardian reported.
Nevertheless, the fake new issue is not something new for Facebook. Earlier, several commentators as well as outgoing president Barack Obama raised concerns on the social media platform's role in spreading fake information during the election.
Incidentally, even though the election is over, spreading false stories continues. For instance, just a day after Trump was declared the winner, there were bogus claims that President Obama planned to give Clinton a "blanket pardon."
Watch Mark Zuckerberg deny false news allegations below:
