Fake News ‘Outperformed’ Real News on Facebook Before US Election
Facebook’s fake news problem is wildly out of control.
BuzzFeed is reporting that at the end of the US presidential election, the top malicious fake news stories actually outperformed the most popular legitimate news stories shared by media companies.
According to data from a Facebook-monitoring tool, the top 20 fake news stories collectively got more engagements — shares, likes, comments — than the top 20 factually accurate news stories shared by mainstream news outlets.
In first place was the totally false “Pope Francis Shocks World, Endorses Donald Trump for President, Releases Statement,” which got a staggering 960,000 engagements when it was shared by Ending The Fed. The second-most popular post was when The Washington Post shared the non-hoax “Trump’s History of Corruption is Mind-Boggling. So why is Clinton Supposedly the Corrupt One?”
More: Fake news ‘outperformed’ real news on Facebook before US election: Report - Business Insider