Andrew Hoffman
WDI Publishing at the University of Michigan (W31C20-PDF-ENG)
May 22, 2020
Facebook, the world’s largest social media company, has a global reach with more than 140 million companies using the Facebook application, 100 billion messages shared daily, and 70 international offices. With such reach and efficient ability to instantly communicate with people, the company had the potential to sabotage the validity of the information it consumes on a daily basis and even threaten American democracy. This case is about the tough business decisions Facebook has seen in response to pressure from governments and organizations to regulate themselves more. Government pressure to regulate Facebook’s political ads increased after foreign governments (particularly Russia) emerged as manipulating social media to influence the 2016 elections. Russian political actors used a wide range of tools to infiltrate public debates, hacking confidential emails from campaign workers, and systematically manipulating Facebook and Twitter to spread misinformation to certain demographics of voters. While Russian agents strategically targeted their fake news, Facebook and Twitter did not have sufficient mechanisms to prevent the effects of fake news. Students examine the role of social media companies in regulating political discourse and the potential for misinformation to spread.
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