Weekly News 8



Facebook and Google promote politicized fake news about Las Vegas shooter

 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/02/las-vegas-shooting-facebook-google-fake-news-shooter
People take shelter inside the Sands Corporation plane hangar after the mass shooting in Las Vegas that killed more than 50.


Key Data/ Statistical Info 

  • Facebook and Google promoted false news stories claiming that the shooter who killed more than 50 people in Las Vegas was a Democrat who opposed Donald Trump.
  • The flow of misinformation on Monday illustrated a particularly grim trend that has increasingly dominated viral online propaganda during US mass shootings – hyper-partisan trolls battling to blame the tragedy on opposing political ideologies.
  • Brooke Binkowski, managing editor of fact-checking website Snopes.com, said in an interview. “A lot of this is pushed by trolls deliberately to muddy the conversation.” False content can quickly move from social media to legitimate news sources, she added: “People are putting out crap information on purpose … It’s really easy to get shit into the news cycle by being on Twitter.”
  • Google, Facebook and Twitter have faced repeated accusations that they allow propaganda to spread on their sites and reach large audiences, and in the wake of embarrassing stories of promoting fake news and offensive content, the tech corporations have typically blamed their algorithms and offered vague pledges of improvement.
The article talks about how major news providers such as Facebook and Google, have promoted fake news stories on the Las Vegas shooter. The articles also mentions the how ''the flow of misinformation...has increasingly dominated viral online propaganda during US mass shootings '' and that it is just a way for ''trolls'' to blame tragedies on opposing political ideologies. 

This links to to NDM as it shows how fake news is an increasingly difficult thing to control online. Users all over the world have access to sites that are often promoted on search engines such as Google. The UGC on most of these sites are at risk of being used by trolls to promote extremist values and ideologies. This could essentially have an affect on Google and Facebook's consumers as they may choose to get their news elsewhere. Furthermore, in my opinion, I believe that popular sites such as Facebook and Google, should at least have some sort of filter or gate-keeping characteristics that prevent trolls publishing false content online. 

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