Facebook and the Fake News Red Herring

A solid percentage of the seemingly endless number of election post-mortems, at least from the half of America disappointed by the result, are reaching a similar conclusion. Blame Facebook.

The social network, which has propagated a rash of outright fake or blatantly misleading news, is an easy target. And for reasons I will get to later, I don’t think the company can turn a cold shoulder to the fake news epidemic.

But I am deeply, deeply worried about the calls I am hearing, from journalists and friends, for Facebook to intervene and accept responsibility for ensuring citizens are well-informed and getting a balanced perspective.