Is Facebook known for spreading fake news?

[yomammyass]

Excuse my ignorance, but I have stopped using Facebook about 6 years ago (My Profile). I have logged on my mother's facebook account as she wanted me to upload an picture for her. She liked many facebook groups, you know for humor, memes and other stuff.

Whilst I was on her Facebook, a video showed that a kangaroo hugged a women and the title was "Kangaroo hugged a woman, because she helped him during the Australian fires 2019-2020 " something like that. Out of curiosity I went on youtube and typed women hugging a kangaroo and I found the same video, but was uploaded in 2016.


Also excuse my word for using 'fake news' , I guess I would call it 'fake information'

[Orbitus]

Excuse my ignorance, but I have stopped using Facebook about 6 years ago (My Profile). I have logged on my mother's facebook account as she wanted me to upload an picture for her. She liked many facebook groups, you know for humor, memes and other stuff.

Whilst I was on her Facebook, a video showed that a kangaroo hugged a women and the title was "Kangaroo hugged a woman, because she helped him during the Australian fires 2019-2020 " something like that. Out of curiosity I went on youtube and typed women hugging a kangaroo and I found the same video, but was uploaded in 2016.


Also excuse my word for using 'fake news' , I guess I would call it 'fake information'

Yes, there is quite often tons of fake memes, fake videos, and fake groups on there. It is only going to get worse from Russians and whatnot.

[Katchii]

Facebook itself (the company) doesn't really spread anything on Facebook, they just actively don't police or fact check anything that everybody else puts up on their site, so long as it abides by the rules of no criminal activity or violence or sex or whatever.

So yes....Facebook is VERY well know for spreading "Fake News" insofar as people are well know for spreading it, and Facebook doesn't stop them from doing it.

[Huzzaa]

It's a far worse echo chamber I believe than even this site.

I've heard some proper stupidity achievements some people apparently spout between like-minded moron$ in said groups.

[Dug]

Yep its pretty bad and FB has no plans on policing all the bullshit content. It's a garbage platform overtaken by older generations with no sense of internet etiquette or culture.

[vindicatorx]

Majority of the internet spreads fake news

[freezion]

Yep its pretty bad and FB has no plans on policing all the bullshit content. It's a garbage platform overtaken by older generations with no sense of internet etiquette or culture.

Facebook started putting disclaimers on certain posts of dubious and questionable or outright false sources and content.
Far from everything, but they are slowly starting to do something.

[Mormolyce]

Many sites have problems with fake news, but yes Facebook is notorious, partly because it's full of gullible old people (and clickbaiters, scammers, trolls and political operatives know it) and partly because the company has consistently dragged its feet on doing anything about it.

[GreenJesus]

Reddit is pretty bad too because the posts get put in a subreddit and people join the ones they like. Anyone who disagrees with that group gets dislike bombed and hidden. The remaining comments are just a big circle jerk. You almost think everyone has a consensus about an issue because you only see 1 opinion that the subgroup supports constantly upvoted.

[Socialhealer]

Yes 10/chars. really nothing more to say its packed full of fake and biased news. also an echo chamber encouraging people to be more like a snowflake.

[Thekri]

Depends what you mean by "Facebook". The company itself doesn't do news, either fake or not. Facebook is a mechanism for millions of people to share their own thoughts and opinions. When millions of people can freely share whatever they like, there tends to be a lot of lies, scams, and propaganda in the mix, and thanks to the way it is structured, it can spread extremely rapidly.

This isn't a new phenomena to facebook though, the quote "A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth gets on its shoes" is an interesting example, citing the same phenomena. It is usually credited to Mark Twain (Who lived quite a bit before facebook), but the hilarious part is that the quote itself is a lie, at least in that Mark Twain invented it, or even ever said it. It is also accredited to Winston Churchill often, and in christian circles it is attributed to Charles Spurgeon (A famous Christian preacher). So while the quote is undoubtedly more then 100 years old, and it is as true now as it was then, it also hilariously serves as a self demonstrating example, as it is frequently passed around the internet with the wrong name attached to it. (We don't know who actually said it first, it seems to be a common saying from the 1800s).

So yeah, Facebook is a modern incarnation of what human nature has demonstrated consistently for at least 8,000 years. That false, sensational information spreads faster then boring true information.

[unbound]

Excuse my ignorance, but I have stopped using Facebook about 6 years ago (My Profile). I have logged on my mother's facebook account as she wanted me to upload an picture for her. She liked many facebook groups, you know for humor, memes and other stuff.

Whilst I was on her Facebook, a video showed that a kangaroo hugged a women and the title was "Kangaroo hugged a woman, because she helped him during the Australian fires 2019-2020 " something like that. Out of curiosity I went on youtube and typed women hugging a kangaroo and I found the same video, but was uploaded in 2016.


Also excuse my word for using 'fake news' , I guess I would call it 'fake information'

Yes. In fact, the CEO (Mark Zuckerberg) has clearly stated that they will not be correcting any fake information provided by politicians. The attempts that they make to get rid of fake news are laughable at best.

The primary problem is that Facebook makes money from companies that create the information. A close second problem is how to identify a lot of the bad information...especially since one of their partner's in fact checking is Check Your Fact which is a subsidiary of Daily Caller (one of the least reputable news organizations out there).

In most cases, they don't even eliminate what they determine to be false information...they merely put it lower on your thread. So someone who sits on Facebook for more than a few minutes will still be exposed to the fake information.

[Themius]

Facebook itself (the company) doesn't really spread anything on Facebook, they just actively don't police or fact check anything that everybody else puts up on their site, so long as it abides by the rules of no criminal activity or violence or sex or whatever.

So yes....Facebook is VERY well know for spreading "Fake News" insofar as people are well know for spreading it, and Facebook doesn't stop them from doing it.

You say that... but they allowed the expansion of hate on Burmese Facebook leading to the targeting of the rohingya people... the excuse was that they didn’t have enough people that spoke the language so there was nothing they could do.

[Doctor Amadeus]

Spreading? No

Profiting off yes. But so does CNN,MSNBC and FOX.

The idea is they don’t stand in the way of fake news and when it’s prudent they’ll take bribes like Sinclair news stations around the country.


At least Facebook is social media meaning it’s up to morons to start and spread bullshit under their own volition.

[smityx]

Is a frogs ass water tight?

[Katchii]

You say that... but they allowed the expansion of hate on Burmese Facebook leading to the targeting of the rohingya people... the excuse was that they didn’t have enough people that spoke the language so there was nothing they could do.

I was unaware of that.

What happened was still technically against their forum rules, it aligns with what I said about them not policing things....this time it was because they were incompetent in this arena rather than actively and honestly allowing it to happen.

That said, Facebook was just a forum used by the people to spread that shit. You can obviously blame Facebook for not adequately policing their site per their own rules, but the root cause for that was still the people themselves.

[Themius]

I was unaware of that.

What happened was still technically against their forum rules, it aligns with what I said about them not policing things....this time it was because they were incompetent in this arena rather than actively and honestly allowing it to happen.

That said, Facebook was just a forum used by the people to spread that shit. You can obviously blame Facebook for not adequately policing their site per their own rules, but the root cause for that was still the people themselves.

This isn’t even a small thing related to just that country. This is an issue in French speaking African countries. Which it shouldn’t be. Facebook just doesn’t care. They allowed so much hate on Indian Facebook and they had plenty of people available. Yet people have died

[Katchii]

This isn’t even a small thing related to just that country. This is an issue in French speaking African countries. Which it shouldn’t be. Facebook just doesn’t care. They allowed so much hate on Indian Facebook and they had plenty of people available. Yet people have died

Again, blame Facebook for not policing their site per their own rules but you can't really blame them for the behavior and actions of the people that are simply using their site.

[crewskater]

Any platform can be used to spread fake news, even MMO-C. I blame the people and not Facebook. It's nearly impossible to monitor and remove that amount of data.

[Flarelaine]

Does a bear shit in the woods?