Can you imagine Facebook without the ability to re-share posts? Would such a move prove more beneficial as opposed to limiting the spread of misinformation within its apps and channels? How much of an impact would that make on Facebook in terms of interaction and engagement?

These questions stem from the release of a couple of new insights from Facebook’s internal research, released as part of the broader ‘Facebook Files’ Leak (makes you wonder just how long that revelation will haunt Facebook). These insights show Facebook’s own reporting found that re-sharing of posts play a key role in amplifying the spread of misinformation and spreading harm across the entire Facebook community.

Alex Kantrowitz reports in his Big Technology newsletter:

“The report noted that people are four times more likely to see misinformation when they encounter a post via a share of a share – kind of like a retweet of a retweet – compared to a typical photo or link on Facebook. Add a few more shares to the chain, and people are five to ten times more likely to see misinformation. It gets worse in certain countries. In India, people who encounter “deep reshares,” as the researchers call them, are twenty times more likely to see misinformation.”

It’s not really to do with direct shares, but more on re-amplified shares that contribute to the harmful and rampant spread of misinformation. Posts that are more controversial, divisive, and ‘shocking’ in nature are the ones that are likely to gain viral traction as these types of posts are shown to better elicit emotional response. This would explain why the more radical a post appears, the more re-shares it’ll likely see.

More from Kantrowitz’s statement:

“The study found that 38% of all [views] of link posts with misinformation take place after two reshares. For photos, the numbers increase – 65% of views of photo misinformation take place after two reshares. Facebook Pages, meanwhile, don’t rely on deep reshares for distribution. About 20% of page content is viewed at a reshare depth of two or higher.”

Simply put, the data tells us that the ‘spicier’ or ‘juicier’ a post appears, the likelier it’ll get amplified and re-amplified through constant sharing. So, back to the initial question, what if Facebook just completely eliminated the option? Well, it has, kind of — back in 2020, Facebook implemented new limits on message-forwarding on WhatsApp, curbing the spread of misinformation through its message chains.

To WhatsApp’s benefit, they report:

“Since putting into place the new limit, globally, there has been a 70% reduction in the number of highly forwarded messages sent on WhatsApp. This change is helping keep WhatsApp a place for personal and private conversations.”

That’s as much of a positive outcome as anyone would want from actually having to impose limits to their own engagement channels, but it does highlight the value of strategic limiting to help ensure long-term platform stability and user-safety.

The Wrap

We can go on and on and cite more examples from the internal research as well as the leaked files, but those would most likely just provide more information that would make us stray from the main topic of this particular article. So instead, let’s talk about what’s clear.; what’s clear is Facebook’s influence and reach – it’s clearly a dominant connection platform and its size makes it difficult to monitor and control every single aspect and element that goes on in the platform.

To avoid further backlash and legal conflict, Facebook should instead focus attention not to just remove the ability to re-share, because doing so would actually hurt its engagement element if you consider legitimate and personal re-shares, but that it should work on overhauling its sharing format so as to comprehensively identify and disallow potentially harmful and fallacious content from being circulated. Can it do so? Yes, absolutely, but the main question is, will it? If Facebook – now under the lead of Meta – truly claims that it’s taking a new direction and has ‘learned from past mistakes’, then clearly it should start by addressing this issue.

Subscribe to our ‘Bottoms Up!’ Newsletter. Get the latest social media news, strategies, updates and trends to take your business to the highest level.

Sources 

https://bit.ly/3qkqwYW