It’s become a trend in our everyday world today, either branding online news as either false news, controversial or even illegal – yeah you heard that right?
These trends, must have been strongly backed up also with the current numerous trends and information floating the internet even to the most lightly politicised topics, thereby causing the most ardent and avid internet users who surf for information on a cause or the other faced with a huge task of wading through the abundance of trash so as to get credible reports of “real events” and real news.
It is a cause which recently, unfortunately, Facebook had to bear with a having been charged in the court of public opinion of internet users for furthering the “fake news” trend by bumping it up higher in many Facebook feeds.
And Then?
What really is “fake news.” To say it backfired would be a very huge understatement. The tech giant who has been at the forefront of many controversial calls like the building/unveiling of their new Andriod phone yet now have another issue to handle.
It went from bad to worse for them in this case, that Facebook bumped up comments in their news feed which allegedly to them their users had stated the content was fake news.
Lack of scrutiny? Can’t just get it.
Tech website Engadget made the following statement as follows, “Users included in the test noted that the system was simply promoting comments that included keywords and phrases like “fake” or “lie,” regardless of what the comment was saying. It wasn’t picky about the source stories, either, so you’d see these incredulous statements highlighted on trustworthy articles.
Point in case!
Moving forward, the current scandal involving paedophilia accusations against the expected winner of Alabama’s Senate seat could be a prime example. As soon as the Washington Post–the very same news outlet who broke the Nixon Watergate scandal and who is owned by billionaire Trump donor Jeff Bezos–released its story on Roy Moore and the women who claim he targeted them when they were mere teenagers, the internet exploded with cries of “fake news”. By Facebook’s logic, those comments would be prioritized in users’ feeds.
While Facebook has put an end to that one, the company says it will continue working to fight back against untruthful, “fake” news despite public uproar from the entire public.
First Seen FileHiippo
