Facebook employees revolt against Mark Zuckerberg over fake news reports

While Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg insists his platform's fake news problem had no impact on the outcome of the election, several of his employees are reportedly banding together against their boss to address the issue.

According to a BuzzFeed News report, an unofficial task force has been formed to explore the role Facebook might have played in the promotion of bogus news reports that led up to President-elect Donald Trump's unexpected victory last week.

"It’s not a crazy idea. What’s crazy is for him to come out and dismiss it like that, when he knows, and those of us at the company know, that fake news ran wild on our platform during the entire campaign season," one unnamed Facebook employee, who works in the engineering division, told the news site after Zuckerberg said it was a "pretty crazy idea" to suggest the social media platform played a role in the election.

Even Bobby Goodlatte, son of Virginia Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R) and one of Facebook's designers, admitted the networking medium has a problem with fake news. "Sadly, News Feed optimizes for engagement. As we've learned in this election, bulls**t is highly engaging. These outlets, and Donald Trump, have no concern for the truth, and really only care for engagement," he wrote in a Facebook post.

In his statement, Goodlatte specifically pointed out a few highly trafficked websites: Breitbart, Vox and the Huffington Post, among others.

The group, which according to BuzzFeed consists of "more than dozens" of employees, is currently meeting privately and plans to present their findings to company leadership once they are finalized. Holding these clandestine meetings allows those involved to speak freely and openly about their concerns.

An October BuzzFeed report determined that three big left-wing websites published incorrect or misleading information in 20 percent of their posts and three highly-trafficked right-wing sites published incorrect or misleading content 38 percent of the time.

Regardless, this rebellious bunch is going against the brass, rejecting Zuckerberg's denial that Facebook swayed the presidential election results.