Jul 22, 2021

Hany Farid on the Spread of Misinformation on Social Media

From The Washington Post

Facebook and YouTube spent a year fighting covid misinformation. It’s still spreading.

By Gerrit De Vynck and Rachel Lerman

Facebook, YouTube and Twitter all banned harmful covid-related misinformation as the pandemic took hold throughout the world. But the false claims are still proliferating...

“For a long time the companies tolerated that because they were like, ‘Who cares if the Earth is flat, who cares if you believe in chemtrails?’ It seemed harmless,” said Hany Farid, a misinformation researcher and professor at the University of California at Berkeley, referring to a long-standing conspiracy theory about airplane condensation trails. “The problem with these conspiracy theories that maybe seemed goofy and harmless is they have led to a general mistrust of governments, institutions, scientists and media, and that has set the stage of what we are seeing now.”

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Hany Farid is Associate Dean and Head of School at the UC Berkeley School of Information.

Last updated: July 28, 2021