Facebook solves election misinformation by spreading misinformation on Teen Vogue

This morning Teen Vogue published a glowing article on Facebook’s efforts to keep 2020 election coverage honest (pictured above).

Except there was a problem with the story. Seemingly nobody at Teen Vogue knew that the story was being published, including the site’s own Twitter account.

The story quickly went through a series of edits. Different bylines were attached and removed:

Then an editors note was attached, confirming the story to be ‘sponsored content’.

Even though Facebook had said that it wasn’t, via Business Insider:

Facebook spokesperson Lisa Stratton said: “This piece is purely editorial. We pitched this to Teen Vogue and worked with their team on the piece over the past few months.” (Companies’ communication teams will sometimes pitch news outlets on possible stories, in the same way news outlets will reach out to companies to ask for interviews and access, and it’s not a sign of a financial relationship or underhand behaviour.)

As such, Facebook’s own Twitter account and Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer, Sheryl Sandberg, shared the post as if it were an editorially independent Teen Vogue story.

Despite the post being later removed due to the kerfuffle.

Thankfully there is one very reasonable take away of this story of misinformation:

Trust Facebook!