Facebook has recently come under intense scrutiny for its role in allowing misinformation regarding COVID-19 to spread on its platform. However, according to Wajahat Ali, a former researcher who led hackathon efforts for Facebook, the company’s problems with false content go so much deeper than that. In a recent opinion piece, Ali makes the persuasive argument that Facebook will never fully crack down on misinformation because of how much the company profits from it.

According to Ali, Facebook’s business model relies on engagement, meaning that the company has no incentive to crack down on heavily-shared content — no matter how false it is. That’s also why many experts believe that the only way to truly rein in Facebook will be to regulate it.

“There has to be regulatory pressure in terms of auditing Big Tech platforms where independent researchers and fact checkers can independently verify claims from Facebook,” said Anjana Susarla, a professor of AI at Michigan State University. “Facebook has pushed back saying they removed millions of pieces of [misinformation]. However, we have no statistics on how much engagement these posts got.”

Of course, it isn’t breaking news to say that Facebook has a problem with misinformation. But it’s especially troubling that even individuals who used to work with the company believe that the issue is out of control.

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