Combating fake news may force big changes at Facebook, Twitter

The day after the 2016 presidential election, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was asked whether social media had contributed to Donald Trump’s win.

“A pretty crazy idea,” he responded at the time. But after months of internal sleuthing by media organizations, congressional investigations, and Facebook itself, the idea doesn’t look so far-fetched.

“Calling that crazy was dismissive and I regret it,” Mr. Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post last week. “We will do our part to defend against nation states attempting to spread misinformation and subvert elections. We'll keep working to ensure the integrity of free and fair elections around the world, and to ensure our community is a platform for all ideas and force for good in democracy.”

It is a startling turnabout. After years of defending themselves as communications networks, whose sole aim is to foster dialogue, social media companies like Facebook and Twitter are under increasing pressure to take responsibility for the

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