Facebook failed to control Covid misinformation due to its design, reveals study
misinformation policies of Facebook, the world's largest social media platform, were not effective in combating misinformation and its overall design is more to blame for this rather than just algorithms, a new study has revealed.
The study, led by researchers at the George Washington University in the US and published in the journal Science Advances, found that Facebook's efforts were undermined by the core design features of the platform itself.
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Offering CollegeCourseWebsiteIIM LucknowIIML Executive Programme in Data ScienceVisitIndian School of BusinessISB Applied Business AnalyticsVisitIndian School of BusinessISB Professional Certificate in Product ManagementVisitIndian School of BusinessISB Digital TransformationVisit«To effectively tackle misinformation and other online harms, we need to move beyond content and algorithms to also focus on design and architecture,» said David Broniatowski, lead study author and an associate professor of engineering management and systems engineering.
The results show that removing content or changing algorithms can be ineffective if it doesn't change what the platform is designed to do — enabling community members to connect over common interests — in this case, vaccine hesitancy — and find information that they are motivated to seek out, he explained.
The researchers found that while Facebook expended significant effort to remove a lot of anti-vaccine content during the Covid-19 pandemic, overall engagement with anti-vaccine content did not decrease beyond prior trends — and, in some cases, even increased.
«This finding… is incredibly concerning. It shows the difficulty that we face as a society in removing health
