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  • The Atlantic

    What Facebook and Google Can Learn From the First Major News Hoax

    The original American penny press told readers that horny bat-people lived on the moon. The year was 1835. Even in 2017, its lessons are more relevant than ever.
    by Derek Thompson Oct 12, 2017 6 minutes
    Source: Library of Congress

    In the age of the platform, how can anybody be sure that the news they read is true?

    Last week, lies, hoaxes, and rumors prevailed on Facebook and Google following the mass murder in Las Vegas. The sites promoted stories claiming that the killer was a Rachel Maddow fan, or an ISIS follower—both false. As gatekeepers of valuable information, the platforms failed, The Atlantic’s Alexis Madrigal wrote. This was a familiar story. After the 2016 election, Russian propaganda and false memes on Facebook elevated “fake news” in the national lexicon. Today, with two-thirds of Americans getting their news from editor-free social media sites, the veracity of news stories is, itself, a major news story.

    For Facebook and Google, the rise of misinformation is a unleashed by their own technology. How can these companies rein in their dangerous creation? The briefest and most honest answer today is it won’t be easy. But some key lessons of the

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