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A majority of US adults say they get their news from social media. That’s up from 10 years ago, when only a quarter of US adults got their news online. Platforms like Facebook have declared they are not media companies; who, then, is responsible for how we receive and consume news?
The president and president-elect addressed that question this week: In his farewell address, Barack Obama cautioned against retreating into “social media bubbles,” while Donald Trump criticized mainstream news outlets for proliferating what he called “fake news” in his first press conference since the election.
For its part, Facebook’s editorial strategy (insofar as one exists) is still unclear. The company has announced it will take on a Journalism Project, a program that aims to “establish stronger ties between Facebook and the news industry.” In creating an entire venture around media, while still refusing to admit it is media, the project could be seen as attempt for the company to distance itself from the media-company label, and all the responsibility that comes with it.
But because social media has an outsize role in how we consume news, until Facebook makes clear its algorithm, it is on the hook for the content its users read.
—Molly Rubin
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