Platforms' attempting to curb Misinformation

For our assignment , we were asked to look at what social media platforms at the moment are making a change with misinformation. In this post, I will be sharing about two platforms who is currently trying to change their platform to be full of real information rather than misinformation.

X ( Twitter)

X or formally known as Twitter is the app where users go to find new news first. Twitter for a long time was known for the app where people would update their life first with less than a 100 characters. Not only would people be updating but it was also a place where it was important to have a similar community so people had to understand you and your tweets. All that went down in about 2020 /2021 when celebrities and creators started to ditch the app. Twitter became an app that was loosing its purpose and even started to loose their loyal users. Around 2020 on Twitter you would start to see a lot of posts sharing misinformation which was mostly from the presidential election. As Twitter was known as a platform where you were able to share your opinions, misinformation started to be shared on a major scale which lead to get to users think these were "true" facts. For a while Twitter let this happen and did not think of doing anything to fix it which caused their loyalty as a platform to decrease.

In the past year, Twitter started to dive deep into seeing what was going on in the platform during those times. They had found over 300,000 misleading posts about the US election alone from October to November of 2020. This is about a quarter of a million which is crazy to think that a platform allowed that much misleading information to be lead out. From those 300,000 posts they only flagged about 400 posts which is concerning as a platform user. This was highlighted all from information that was posted by Donald Trump who had been sharing on Twitter that he had won the election when it was false news. This lead Twitter to start implementing a new tool to their platform to help detect misinformation or fake news. They are starting to use the platform Birdwatch which helps moderate and fact check news that is being posted on the platform.

Facebook / Meta

The next platform that is trying to curb misinformation from their platform is Meta / Facebook. Meta has been known for years to spread misinformation from daily users and news sources but they have implemented the some policies that would change that. Meta is a the company that owns Facebook , X , and Instagram. They are the leading social company with the most users at over 4 billion users monthly. With those type of numbers, they need should have some strict polices on what information or posts is being shared to these 4Billion+ users.

They have started off with their policy for misinformation being spread on their platforms. When they see posts that include

• Posts containing false or misleading information about election dates, locations, times, or eligibility;

• Posts that feature false or misleading information about the methods of voting or whether a vote will be counted;

• Misleading posts about whether a candidate is running; and

• Coordinated calls for voter/elections interference

When they see posts with one or all of these qualities it is quickly taken off of their social platforms This would prohibit the content and help the stop of spreading misinformation . In my own experience, I do feel like I have seen this happen now more than ever because it is not as common to see fake news as much on social media. I think this could come from users they banned or the watch they have over these policies on their platforms.

With their polices, they also have one issue that could cause the spread of misinformation to continue which is their exempt for politicians on the platforms. They state that politicians don't have to use"third-party fact-checking program. This policy covers statements, photos, videos, and other content labeled as part of a politician’s platform or campaign." This could be an issue in this years upcoming election as it could spread misinformation about the election or candidates. One thing that Meta did do for this upcoming election is suspend Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Instagram and Facebook because of past misinformation posts they had made.

Conclusion

In conclusion I do think social media platforms are applying more policies into stopping the spread of misinformation but could put more effort in. We are still seeing misinformation on platforms and not only from known users but also from everyday users. I think they should implement a new way to check on accounts who are spreading the misinformation and investigate them quickly if anything is shared. This would lead to a quick ban from the platform. This is one way to stop the spread of misinformation but if the company it's self is not taking the actions as seriously we will not see a change until we call it out to them .