Pope Francis Shocks World, Endorses Donald Trump for President ", the headline on Facebook screamed. Another read: "Wikileaks CONFIRMS Hillary Sold Weapons to ISIS ... Then Drops Another BOMBSHELL!" Neither of these was true. They are part of a spate of misinformation that, many argue, may have influenced the US presidential elections. "In the final three months of the US presidential campaign, the top-performing fake election news stories on Facebook generated more engagement than the top stories from major news outlets such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Huffington Post [and] NBC News," a BuzzFeed analysis found. It’s all the more problematic because 44% of the US population get their news via Facebook, according to a May report by the Pew Research Center and the Knight Foundation.
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