The Case To Reform the Share Button, According to Facebook’s Own Research

New leaked document shows Facebook’s Share button spreads misinformation pervasively after two hops down the chain

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In spring 2019, Facebook researchers looked into whether the Share button helped amplify misinformation. In a report called “Deep Reshares and Misinformation,” they confirmed their suspicions.

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.

“Our data,” the researchers concluded, ”reveals that misinformation relies much more on deep reshares for distribution that major publishers do.”

A simple product tweak, the research indicated, would likely help Facebook…