By Paula Hernandez Garaycoa

In an age where traditional journalism is under attack by the sheer volume of information available online, there is no doubt that social media platforms are essential to the relationship between news and modern citizens. That being said, the volume of inaccurate information portrayed as truth is a serious problem which infests a variety of platforms including Facebook. The solution, however, is not to underestimate the modern-day internet user/news consumer by providing them with an opportunity they already have, but rather, to look back on the deeper issue and think of a more comprehensive solution.

Facebook is testing a subscription sign-up which would allow people to subscribe to outside news sources via Facebook. This comes as a relief to publishers, who have been asking Facebook to encourage its users to purchase their news and revitalize their platforms. Although Facebook intends to allow publishers to keep 100 percent of the revenue, something that is sure to help promote fact-checked and accurate journalism globally, Facebook’s new innovation is a Band-Aid covering up a gunshot wound.

Facebook’s reputation suffered greatly (particularly during the 2016 elections), with a mass influx of verifiably false articles showing up on feeds globally. Headlines like “WikiLeaks confirms that Hilary Clinton Sold Weapons to ISIS” and “Obama Signs Executive Order Banning the Pledge of Allegiance in Schools Nationwide” were the norm. The masses, through Facebook’s platform, were (and still are) given false information. While Facebook may take action against some of the perpetrators, the line between censorship and protecting the masses from false indoctrination is thin and dangerous, particularly when Facebook has its own political biases and agendas.

This news subscription program will do little to prevent false news stories and is nothing more than a PR distraction from Facebook and society’s larger problem. Those who do not want to pay for news in the age of instant information via the internet will simply scroll past the subscription button, and the chaotic nature of Facebook’s news platform will remain virtually unchanged. The current problem is not that people don’t know where or how to subscribe to newspapers. That can be Googled. It is that they see no point in paying for news when they can find information they want free online. While the publishers and people around the world fawn over Zuckerberg’s so-called philanthropic efforts to help save traditional news outlets and educate the masses, they forget that Facebook’s platform is one of the primary culprits for the spread of fake news.

Facebook is not the one responsible for society’s disinterest in paying for credible and established news media. That being said, this program is nothing more than Zuckerberg’s attempt to legitimize his platform and clean up the unforgiving image that Facebook has developed as a chatroom that promotes fake news. If the actual goal were to promote accurate news and journalism, Facebook would establish a more advanced, unbiased, and efficient fact-checking system to discredit false news stories.

The program shows that Facebook will continue being a manipulative platform to its users, both in the false information it spreads and its deceit of people through “charity” work.

Paula Hernandez Garaycoa, FCRH ’21, is an English major from Miami, Florida.