SXSWORLD

2 8 SXS W O R L D | F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 7 | SXSW.COM Fake News Should Make Content Consumers Pause By DoyeN oyeNiyi received far better engagement than the top trending real news stories. So even if they were smaller in quantity, they were greater in impact."  Although Culver agrees that it's hard to pinpoint exactly how fake news affected the election, she believes that "You don't have to show that something had a specific impact to show that it had negative consequences. This isn't just about the U.S. presidential election ... it's about the integrity of news on this platform that 1.7 billion people use."  Later in November, Google and Facebook both took steps to address their fake news problems. Google stated it would ban web- sites that post fake news from using Google AdSense, and Facebook updated its Facebook Audience Network policy to include fake news in its category of websites for which it would not display ads.  In December, Facebook took more definitive steps. Its new program includes a feature that allows users to flag articles they believe are fake. Facebook also partnered with organiza- tions that have agreed to the Poynter Institute for Media Studies' International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) code of principles to help fact check articles that have been flagged.  "The way it works is that we are one of a handful of news and fact-checking organizations who have access to a dashboard that Facebook created, that allows us to see a lot of the content that's being flagged as fake by users," said Eric Carvin, social media editor for the Associated Press. "We get to see those items. We make individual decisions on a case-by-case basis whether we want to write our own story debunking what's fake or more importantly, reporting what's true about the subject at hand."  When a story has been marked as fake or "disputed" and a user attempts to share it, a pop-up warns that the story might be fake. That notification is what Culver refers to as "engineering ethics" because it makes consumers more aware -- and responsible -- for what they're sharing.  "I think the onus is really on the consumer of content," Agresta said. "My best advice is be more aware of the credibility of who is influencing you. Do more research. The main message here is for people to think twice before just sharing." Journalism is one of the 24 programming tracks at SXSW 2017. Visit sxsw.com/conference for more information. T raditionally, media outlets have ignored fake news in an effort not to give it traction. Today, however, with the rise of social media and the ease with which consumers can get and share information, there is the need for a new strategy for vet- ting legitimate and false news. This was especially evident after the 2016 election, when claims that false news articles had affected people's votes increased concerns - and prompted the search for a solution.  Kathleen Culver, an assistant journalism professor and the Director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has been discussing fake news in her class- room since last fall. In August, Facebook fired its editors from the Trending news section after they were accused of being biased against conservative news. It was then that Culver noticed an uptick in fake news on Facebook, not just in the Trending section, but also in posts that her friends shared on her feed. Culver wasn't the only one who noticed. She cited a Washington Post article that reported that three days after Facebook fired its editors, a fake story about Megyn Kelly being fired from Fox News for supporting Hillary Clinton was one of their trending topics.  The trend continued throughout the election. Stories that claimed that the Pope supported Donald Trump, and that Hillary Clinton sold weapons to ISIS were among some of the top fake news posts shared. An analysis by BuzzFeed News even found that those fake stories gained more shares and interactions than real stories from traditional and reputable media outlets. A Guardian report found more than 150 websites registered and apparently run by people in Macedonia were created to look like legitimate news outlets while peddling false information, all for the purpose of attracting readers and their profitable ad clicks.  "That's an important piece of the fake news phenomena," said Stephanie Agresta, a marketing expert and TechSet co-host of SXSW's Social Media Lounge. "Some of it is absolutely motivated by financial interest, whether it's the teen expert in the Balkans or entrepreneurs who just see it as a way to make significant amounts of money per month from Google and Facebook."  As talk about the rise and influence of fake news picked up, focus turned to big companies such as Google and Facebook. Google AdSense allows nearly any website to be monetized through it, and Facebook's dependence on only an algorithm for its Trending section made the platform a major hub for the easy spread of fake stories. Facebook's initial response to the concerns was a defensive dismissal.  "Personally I think the idea that fake news on Facebook, which is a very small amount of the content, influenced the election in any way — I think is a pretty crazy idea," Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's CEO, said during the Techonomy conference after the election. "Voters make decisions based on their lived experience."  "But that misses the point," Culver said. "If it's easy to identify that this information is fake or that it's a hoax, so why should it be there at all? Plus, some analyses show that the fake news stories Stephanie Agresta, photo by Elisabeth Mckay

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