Snapchat: A Walled Garden Where Fake News Isn’t Allowed

“Since September, Facebook and Google have acknowledged selling political ad space to Kremlin-affiliated groups that spread false stories about the 2016 U.S. presidential election (…) There are signs of Russian activity on almost every American social network of any consequence, including Twitter, Reddit, Tumblr, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and even the smartphone video game Pokémon Go (…) Snapchat, however, has found no evidence of political ad buys by anyone in Russia. In fact, Snapchat appears to have no fake news at all,” writes Bloomberg.

How come? There are many factors that contribute to Snapchat being fake news-free, as we find out in Bloomberg’s article. It starts with the network’s philosophy to cater to a small group of users, instead of encouraging a big following like Twitter and Facebook. The private nature of Snapchat prevents fake news from spreading — even if containing erroneous information, a snap almost never reaches more than a few hundred viewers.

Instead of relying on algorithms, Snapchat also puts human eyes on user-generated content. Moderators try to catch fake news and make sure it doesn’t find a wider audience on the service. Stories that are shared in Snapchat's "Our Story", an aggregated channel of user-submitted content created around a big event, are reviewed and fact-checked before being featured.

Then comes Snapchat’s corporate culture. Unlike Twitter and Facebook, the company willingly embraced its role as a news curator, staying commitment to traditional news values. The app’s news section "Discover" features only professionally edited content prepared by credible media companies.

Bloomberg’s article shows that business and design decisions can have a major impact on the proliferation of fake news on the social media platform. And if Snapchat managed, it means that Facebook or Twitter could too.