, Columnist
Fact-Checking Covid-19 Posts Isn’t Working. There’s a Better Way.
Facebook and Twitter could harness crowdsourcing to elevate the stories most likely to be true rather than those most likely to be shared.
Might be easier to just rename the company.
Photographer: BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
The right and left may not agree on what constitutes misinformation, but both would like to see less of it on social media. And as the world faces the third year of the Covid-19 pandemic, the threat medical misinformation poses to public health remains real. Companies like Twitter and Facebook have a stake in cleaning up their platforms — without relying on censoring or fact-checking.
Censoring can engender distrust when social media companies expunge posts or delete accounts without explanation. It can even raise the profile of those who’ve been “canceled.”