In the wake of a campaign cycle that saw “fake news” widely shared on social media — and widespread criticism that his company did not do enough to combat it — Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg announced late last week that his company is working to address the problem of “misinformation” being spread on the site.

“Our goal is to connect people with the stories they find most meaningful, and we know people want accurate information,” Zuckerberg wrote Friday in a Facebook post. “We’ve been working on this problem for a long time and we take this responsibility seriously. We’ve made significant progress, but there is more work to be done.”

Zuckerberg outlined several “projects” aimed at detecting and reporting “fake stories,” fact-checking questionable content and “disrupting fake news economics.”

“A lot of misinformation is driven by financially motivated spam,” he wrote.

Paul Horner, a writer who makes his living off writing fake news stories that go viral, told the Washington Post that he believes Donald Trump won the election because of him.

“I think Trump is in the White House because of me,” Horner said. “His followers don’t fact-check anything — they’ll post everything, believe anything.”

During the campaign, several of Horner’s intentionally false pieces were picked up and shared on Twitter by members of Team Trump. In March, Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s campaign manager at the time, posted Horner’s story about an anti-Trump protester supposedly being paid $3,500 to protest at one of his rallies.

“I’ve gone to Trump protests — trust me, no one needs to get paid to protest Trump,” Horner said. “I just wanted to make fun of that insane belief, but it took off. They actually believed it.”

“I thought they’d fact-check it, and it’d make them look worse,” he added. “But Trump supporters — they just keep running with it! They never fact-check anything!”

Neither, it seems, does the president-elect.

The day after the election, a Twitter user in Austin, Texas, posted a photo of buses that he said were being used to transport paid protesters to demonstrations against President-elect Trump.

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Except they weren’t. According to the New York Times, the buses were hired by a software company that was holding a conference in Austin. But that didn’t stop conservative websites from picking up the story.

The report may have even made its way to Trump’s Twitter feed.

Just had a very open and successful presidential election. Now professional protesters, incited by the media, are protesting. Very unfair! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 11, 2016





“Just had a very open and successful presidential election,” Trump tweeted the next day. “Now professional protesters, incited by the media, are protesting. Very unfair!”

Thanks to the election, the fake news industry is booming.

A recent BuzzFeed study found that during the final three months of the 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, Washington Post … and others.”

And it’s lucrative.

Paris Wade and Ben Goldman, self-described “new yellow journalists” who run the website Liberty Writers News, told the Post they are “making so much money that they feel uncomfortable talking about it because they don’t want people to start asking for loans.” Horner said he makes about $10,000 a month from advertising on his stories.

To combat fake news, Zuckerberg said Facebook is looking into cracking down on the ads on fake news.

Still, Zuckerberg added, “We do not want to be arbiters of truth ourselves.”

That statement didn’t sit well with the Times’ media columnist, Jim Rutenberg.

“Truth doesn’t need arbiters,” Rutenberg wrote. “It needs defenders. And it needs them now more than ever as the American democracy staggers into its next uncertain phase. With a mainstream news media that works hard to separate fact from fiction under economic and political threat, Facebook — which has contributed to that economic threat by gobbling up so much of the online advertising market — is going to have a special responsibility to do its part.”

Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan suggested it’s time for Facebook to do something “bolder,” like hire an “executive editor.”

“Zuckerberg may not want to call this person an editor, since he has been insistent that Facebook isn’t a media company,” Sullivan wrote. “He sees it as a technology company, a platform for connectivity. And indeed, Facebook itself does not produce news content but merely allows its community members to share their own offerings — whether baby pictures or hoaxes about political candidates. That’s fine. Call this person the chief sharing officer or the engagement czarina.

“Whatever the title,” she wrote, “Facebook needs someone who can distinguish a Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph from child pornography and who can tell a baseless lie from a thoroughly vetted investigative story.”

"Fake news" breeds confusion. People in power benefit from confusion. So outsmart them — refuse to be confused. https://t.co/AnU746VAv1 — Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) November 20, 2016





But according to CNN media correspondent Brian Stelter, Facebook users need to do some personal reflection too.

“Fake news sources like Liberty Writers News are just a symptom of a disease,” Stelter said on “Reliable Sources” on Sunday. “The disease is distrust. The folks who click on these links and share these stories don’t trust real sources.

“Fake news stories sow confusion,” Stelter added. “People in power, all around the world, benefit from confusion. … So users should outsmart them. Refuse to be confused.”