The algorithm is designed to propagate misinformation like crazy because that's what drives engagement and improves Facebook's metrics.
From there on, it's just a matter of highlighting these successful matches constantly in your feeds.
I wouldn't put it past that.
I see 2 potential problems.
If the approach would be content-neutral - i.e. simply relying on the form of the information (eg misspellings in the title, many exclamation points, and such) to distinguish that which is more likely to be fake - then there could be a race condition where the misinformation purveyors learn and subvert the algorithm followed by the misinformation identifier incorporating the new forms of misinformation, and so on. In the meantime, true information purveyors would also need to be aware of this algorithm so as not to be falsely labeled. Think of the race in SEO for an example
If the misinformation identifier uses the content of the information to label misinformation, then the identifier itself is as open to bias and opinion as anyone else
Some of the best spammers have better practices than the legitimate companies sending email.
That was hyperbole on OP’s part.
The algorithm is designed to incentivise the creation and dissemination of attention-grabbing content without considering truthfulness. That simply and directly incentivises misinformation propagation. The fact that politically-disinterested troll groups routinely get incentivised to produce misinformation for clicks is Exhibit A to how deeply Facebook promotes these mechanisms.
Facebook and its employees turn a blind eye to these second-order effects because they are massively profitable. That’s as close to “designed to” as one can get without literally coding for it.
> The algorithm is designed to propagate misinformation like crazy because that's what drives engagement and improves Facebook's metrics.
I would put it like this:
The algorithm design causes the propagation of misinformation like crazy because it optimizes for engagement (which is Facebook's core metric).