Mark Zuckerberg’s post on his Facebook implies that he still disagrees with the argument on that Facebook has influenced the result of the election as some pointed out that some fake news and hoaxes posted on Facebook have contributed to Donald Trump’s victory.

This post interested me since it shows the aspect which majority might seldom think about is how the information provided or disseminated by influential social network business can affect people’s mind. This just reminds me of William Randolph Hearst, who founded the era of Yellow Journalism. The biggest difference between Yellow Journalism and Facebook is that Hearst 100% intended to deceived the majority to achieve his goal while Zuckerberg has emphasized that 99% contents on Facebook is true rather than be made up as faked news and hoaxes. Should this be attributed to business ethics? Should weighty media-related business be regulated on the reliability of the information posted on it?

Besides Hearst and Facebook, another victim of the false information searched from Internet came from China. Wei Zexi, a 21-year-old Chinese college student died in April, 2016 after receiving the treatment of his synovial sarcoma at the Second Hospital of the Beijing Armed Police Corps which is recommended by the largest Chinese search engine, Baidu. The high success success treatment rate promoted on Baidu was faked and Wei accused Baidu of promoting faked medical information. This case was an explosion. Unlike Facebook and the election, a young man just died because of the information promoted on Baidu. It is no longer about business ethics only, but how the business truly take care of its clients.

How Facebook influenced the election cannot be convicted, and though truly it is not Facebook itself that promoted all the news and hoaxes, as the carrier and platform, it does have the responsibility to regulate those posts, or it could lead to unimaginable disaster.

References:

http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-on-facebooks-fake-news-and-the-election-2016-11

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Wei_Zexi

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