Facebook's Own CEO Fights Back against the Claim Fake News Helped Donald Trump When the Election

Thursday on NBC’s “Today,” Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg dismissed the notion that so-called “fake news” on her social media platform was behind last month’s election outcome.



Sandberg acknowledged the problem and said it was something Facebook was working on to improve.



“We’ve been working on this for a long time and we have taken important steps, but there is a lot more we can do,” she said. “We know that people don’t want to see hoaxes on Facebook and we don’t want to see hoaxes on Facebook. And so we’re working on it because misinformation is something we take seriously. And something we’re going to continue to iterate on the service.”



As far as the election, Sandberg said Facebook did not think it was a factor in the presidential election.



“Well, there have been claims that it swayed the election, and we don’t think it swayed the election, but we take that responsibility really seriously. And we’re looking at things like working with third parties, helping to label false news, doing the things we can do to make it clearer what is a hoax on Facebook.”