Facebook Seems To Have An Infowars Problem

Since the social networking giant held an event last week to tout how it's fighting false news and misinformation, Facebook has faced some blowback for how it handles Infowars, the far-right site led by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.

Since misinformation on the internet during the 2016 presidential campaign sharpened political divisions, Facebook has publicly mounted an offensive against the spread of false news on its network.

USAToday reports many journalists have challenged Facebook saying if the site is truly fighting the spread of misinformation, how can it justify continuing to allow an official page for Infowars, which has propagated stories about hoaxes such as Pizzagate, and most recently, the Democrats' plan on July 4th to attempt to foment a civil war.

Alex Jones

When CNN reporter Oliver Darcy asked Facebook executives at Wednesday's event about Infowars and its Facebook page with more than 900,000 followers, he was told by John Hegeman, the head of Facebook's News Feed, that the network does not "take down false news."

Infowars just being false "doesn't violate the community standards," Hegeman said, according to CNN, explaining that the site has "not violated something that would result in them being taken down."

Instead, Facebook's strategies against false information will push such stories down in the News Feed so fewer users see it, Facebook spokeswoman Lauren Svensson told CNN later in an email exchange.

"If content from a Page or domain is repeatedly given a 'false' rating from our third-party fact-checkers ... we remove their monetization and advertising privileges to cut off financial incentives, and dramatically reduce the distribution of all of their Page-level or domain-level content on Facebook," she said, according to CNN reported.

The Austin, Texas-based Jones launched the Infowars website in 1999. Jones, the site says, "is a unique voice that sifts through the information and exposes the underlying intentions."