CALUM MACDONALD (HOST): What is the solution to [dealing with fake news?] Maybe that's too big a question, but if it is such a big problem, and it is captivating so many people, what can we actually do about it? 

ANGELO CARUSONE: Here's the truth. And I think the one thing that I just try to remind everybody about just so that there's a little bit of encouragement, is that it's not like people lying and making things up -- either because they genuinely believe them or because it serves their purposes -- is something brand new. Media Matters has been around for 12 years and it's not like fake news stories suddenly started creeping up. They've always existed. The reason that there is such a problem now is that instead of those email chains that you'd have in the late ‘90s spreading this kind of stuff, now you have social media accounts which reaches so many more people and increasingly isolates them from real information. And then you compound that with people like Donald Trump that validate the idea that everybody else is lying to them except for these few sites. So the one thing that I would point out is that there are actually -- and I am extremely sensitive, scared and sensitive about the idea of technology companies policing content. It really makes me very anxious. And so I'm not actually demanding or calling for these companies to be really aggressively policing the substance of the content. 

But that said, there are -- and this is the one thing that I would encourage everybody to really think about -- part of the reason fake news became such a problem this recently is because they're cheating. And so by that I mean, the people behind this -- Facebook relies on these formulas that determine how far and wide your content gets spread. And there are basic rules that it abides by. And you can game those rules by cheating, by having sort of artificial accounts that make the post that you just put up seem more relevant and exciting than it actually is. Or you can obviously cross-pollinate with other Facebook accounts. There is all sorts of rules that you have to abide by that you shouldn't be doing. My point being is that they cheat. I think -- so one basic thing is Facebook needs to be very aggressive about getting rid of the bots. The second thing that Facebook did, and this is ultimately what really made the problem worse, is that Facebook used to have human editors that would determine or help curate the trending topics. And because of actually a fake news story that said the editors at Facebook were actually engaging in a conspiracy against conservatives, Mark Zuckerberg fired all of the human editors. And at the same time that he did that, the fake news problem magnified by at least four-fold in terms of its reach on Facebook. And in large parts because there was nobody weeding out some of this nonsense. 

Previously: 

How Facebook’s Fake News Ecosystem Empowers Total Lies

Facebook’s Trending Topics Adjustments Are Half-Measures

Google Quietly Removes “Fake News” Language From Its Advertising Policy

Why We Should Keep Using The Term “Fake News”