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Mark Zuckerberg Announces Facebook Will Fight Fake News -- Next To An Ad With Fake News (facebook.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the unconvincing-updates dept.

An anonymous reader writes: "We take misinformation seriously," Facebook's CEO announced in a late-night status update Friday. "Our goal is to connect people with the stories they find most meaningful, and we know people want accurate information. 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."

But you know what's funny? The ad to the right of Zuck's post is fake news. It has the headline "Hugh Hefner Says 'Goodbye' at 90" and a quote from his wife saying "I can't believe he is actually gone," even though Hugh Hefner isn't dead. And clicking through, it's just another lame ad for erectile dysfunction -- on a site that's been tricked up to look like Fox News.
I saw it too. (Here's my screenshot... And yes, it did link to an advertising site with a fake "Fox News" banner across the top.) Oh, the irony. "The CEO said that Facebook is working to develop stronger fake news detection, a warning system, easier reporting and technical ways to classify misinformation," reports CNN, adding "Zuckerberg did not say how quickly the measures would be in place." They also quote Zuckerberg as saying "Some of these ideas will work well, and some will not." But apparently it's pretty easy to get fake news onto Facebook. You just have to pay them.

6 of 149 comments (clear)

  1. evidence? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Would have been nice to post a screenshot since the ads change with every page load. As far as I can tell this is completely made up.

    1. Re:evidence? by lgw · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Would have been nice to post a screenshot since the ads change with every page load. As far as I can tell this is completely made up.

      Also, the idea that you can get Facebook to post lies by paying them is their entire business model. OK, OK, the 99% of marketing that is lies give the other 1% a bad name, sure, but really - any advertising-based business is the business of displaying lies for money.

      Whipslash really seems to like his "daily story about why you shouldn't use Facebook" though, so I guess we're doomed to repeat this discussion.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  2. Facebook is a bad joke by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'll be glad when this 'social media' fad blows over finally and people go back to valuing privacy.

  3. Fake news, ok, but what about lies? by Fragnet · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The biggest lies I see on news channels these days are lies of omission. It's not really what they are telling you that's important, it's what they aren't telling you.

  4. Re: Funny by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    He is a misogynist

    Thanks! Now I know he's probably not a misogynist. Do you have anymore knee-jerk epithets so I can know he's probably not any of those things too?

  5. Clinton Machine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The Clinton propaganda machine wasn't happy about losing the election. There were a lot of dirty tricks they tried and still managed to fail. The mainstream news didn't cover all of her corruption and decided to ignore it. As a progressive I had to turn to the "alt right" news sources to inform myself on the truth of various matters. Now the democrats are being sore losers and want to eliminate the first amendment of the Constitution.

      If you let the government censor one form of speech don't be surprised when they start coming after other forms of speech.