One of those people is President Barack Obama, who has warned that fake news threatens the basic principle of freedom of speech. Now, the outcry over fake news and its apparent role in the election is prompting calls for Facebook to consider itself a media company, with editorial responsibilities, which the social network has repeatedly rejected. And Kahn believes that Facebook, by considering itself a "neutral" platform, "allows the media ecosystem to be polluted" with bogus news. Tech entrepreneur Elad Gil said it should not be too difficult for a company like Facebook to apply its technical expertise to determine when a news story is fake. "So a decision by Facebook to censor 'fake news' would heavily weigh in favor of the more mainstream and 'powerful' traditional media outlets," he wrote.

Source: The Nation Bangkok November 22, 2016 03:03 UTC