Don’t blame us for the misinformation, blame yourself

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(Newser) – We all agree, for the most part, that the spread of disinformation has exacerbated current politics and the management of contemporary health issues like COVID. What we may not all agree on, however, is the role social media is playing in promoting this spread. Andrew Bosworth, for example, a longtime Facebook executive who is slated to become chief technology officer of parent company Meta in 2022, accuses the company, not its social network, of amplifying the problem. “Humans are the ones who choose to believe or not to believe a thing,” Bosworth said in an interview with Axios on HBO on Sunday. “They are the ones who choose to share or not to share a thing.”

Bosworth was asked specifically about Facebook’s role in exacerbating vaccine reluctance in the COVID era, a question that made him bristle. “It’s their choice,” he said of Facebook users who choose to listen to bad news from family and friends over credible sources. “They’re allowed to do this. You’ve got a problem with these people. You don’t have a problem with Facebook. You can’t blame me.” He added that even if Facebook injected “every dollar” it had to fight disinformation on its channels, someone would still find a way to exploit the system.

Insider cites two reports from September that shed light on the problem. One shows that troll operations ahead of the 2020 election spread their misinformation to an estimated 140 million Americans, while the second found that Facebook posts from questionable sources generated six times the engagement of people. users than publications from reputable information sources. Yet Bosworth suggests that this is a supply and demand issue that Facebook can’t and shouldn’t fully control. “People want this information,” he said. “I don’t believe the answer is ‘I will deny these people the information they are looking for and I will apply my will to them.’ At some point, the responsibility rests, and should be, in any meaningful democracy with the individual. ”Watch her take here. (Read more Meta Stories.)

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