Facing Fakes: Understanding Tech Platforms’ Responses to Online Falsehoods

Abstract

While technology companies have been blamed for playing a key role in the rise of online falsehoods, it has not always been clear how these companies understand the nature of the problem, which can explain their responses and how these responses evolved over time. Through a qualitative analyses of official press releases and public statements issued by various online technology platforms from 2016 to 2020, this exploratory study seeks to understand and typologize how technology platforms constructed and characterized the problem of online falsehoods and how these manifest in the range of interventions they have implemented.

Keywords:

• Fact-checking
• fake news
• online falsehoods
• social media
• technology companies

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research is supported by the Singapore Social Science Research Council Grant and completed under the Nanyang Research Programme.