Zuckerberg Denies ‘Crazy’ Allegations That Fake Facebook News Influenced the US Presidential Elections, But What’s The Truth?

Donald Trump's win in the US presidential race will go down as one of the greatest upsets in history, but many are convinced that the fake Facebook news influenced the US presidential elections. Zuckerberg dismisses "crazy" allegations, but is there any truth to his explanations?

All this brouhaha that the fake Facebook news influenced the US presidential elections has Facebook's top executives questioning themselves, as they tried to address the issue and alleviate staff worries at a quarterly all-hands meeting. They additionally assembled a smaller conference with the organization's policy team, although the discussion of whether the fake Facebook news influenced people's decisions were kept confidential.

Mark Zuckerberg denies that fake news on Facebook influenced the elections https://t.co/NT7hYbxUa1

— Washington Post (@washingtonpost) November 12, 2016

Facebook has been in the eye of a post-US presidential elections storm throughout the previous few days, involved in allegations that it spread fake Facebook news influenced how the American electorate voted. The online discussion among Facebook's officials on Tuesday, which was one of a few private message threads that started among the organization's top executives, just goes to show how much the social network giant was internally debating how fake Facebook news influenced its user's decisions.

Indeed, even as Facebook has ostensibly presented itself as a neutral data source, Facebook chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg reiterated that accusations that fake Facebook news influenced the US presidential elections was "insane." A number of Facebook employees raised concerns about the spread of bigoted memes and alt-right posts across social media.

Significantly, more people are reassessing Facebook's part as a media organization and thinking about how to stop the dispersion of fake Facebook news across the system. A few representatives have been inclined to send proposals to product managers on the best way to enhance Facebook's newsfeed and the idea that fake Facebook news influenced the way people think on a day-to-day basis is plausible since users spend so much time browsing their feed.

The University of North Carolina associate professor Zeynep Tufekci illustrated how fake Facebook news influenced the masses, "A fake story claiming Pope Francis - actually a refugee advocate - endorsed Mr. Trump was shared almost a million times, likely visible to tens of millions. Its correction was barely heard. Of course Facebook had significant influence in this last election's outcome."