This blog post is not a political piece, yet people will take an issue with it or pick a side. That’s fine. People have opinions on free speech and the overreach of the government. If people want to debate this and take issue with a post, then so be it. President Biden answered a reporter’s question regarding his thoughts on platforms like Facebook with, “They’re killing people.” This answer was in response to the misinformation that is being created and shared on Facebook. The following NPR article mentioned how most misinformation about Covid-19 and vaccinations was coming from 12 people. Let that sink in; 12 people are most responsible for posting incorrect or made-up information that is actively being shared online and in person. A new study stated that 99% of all Covid related deaths in June 2021 were unvaccinated. Los Angeles hospitals said all current Covid patients are unvaccinated.
Facebook fired back with a yet, but statement about how more people received helpful information about Covid. Nowhere in Facebook’s statement did they address any countermeasures they are taking to combat these accounts or the dangers they possess. Misinformation is not new. I had to correct fake information shared on Facebook and combat mistruths with links to Snopes with several people. I won’t name; I have repeatedly pointed out how they were posting and sharing incorrect statements or media. One of the biggest problems is that people take the information they see at face value and don’t investigate it to see if it’s true or accurate. One great example was a group of school teachers that shared a viral video that showed how schools in China were combating Covid. The video was a fake. The Facebook page that distributed it uses AI technology to create videos that it knows will go viral. Let me reiterate that people with college degrees in education and responsible for teaching children fell victim to a fake news story.
What needs to be addressed is what these platforms do when they are alerted to wrong and misleading information. Facebook is the worst platform when it comes to dealing with reports of abuse. A prime example is Dr. Nicole Brown. Nicole posted on Twitter that she couldn’t get Facebook to take down a fake account pretending to be her. Nicole was pleading for others to flag the profile in hopes that Facebook would remove it. I flagged it full well, knowing that it wouldn’t go anyway. I check the next day, and my report was not actioned because Facebook technology is more intelligent than I. If the AI is flawed, there is no way to see what we see. Facebook is still allowing fake accounts to be created on an hourly basis. Time will tell what the intentions of this phony account are. Typically the fake profiles leaving fake reviews or sell spam services. Dr. Brown is a pediatrician, and she has made a lot of enemies with the original anti-vaxxers. Nicole uses social media to combat the misinformation on vaccinations and educate the public. Anti-vaxxers have targeted Nicole and left fake negative online reviews for her medical practice. Google was able to remove a handful of the fake reviews while others remain live.
Platforms like Facebook need to update their policies and start combating fake profiles. Sadly they all hide behind Section 230 and act like they are merely a conduit. The flaw in this logic is that it’s Facebook’s platform and Facebook’s users. You can’t post on Facebook without creating an account. Facebook is not scraping my website or other social media and serving it up. Section 230 was designed to protect search engines from being held responsible for Alex Jone’s writing a blog stating that Sandy Hook was a hoax and that article showed up for Sandy Hook searches. Section 230 was never meant to cover Facebook, Twitter, Google, and others to create their platform and allow users to use the platform’s accounts to post whatever they want to be let off the hook. Section 230 is outdated and needs a significant overhaul. These platforms can keep sticking their heads in the sand while growing in market share and revenue. If these platforms can’t or won’t do better, then the government needs to step in and force them to clean up.
