The term “fake news” has been on everyone’s mind lately, and Facebook is one of the worst culprits.
Not the site itself, of course, but people who create sham accounts for that purpose.
And while Facebook can’t technically be blamed for the actions of others, it also can’t have a blind eye.
In August of last year, Facebook made the decision to replace its Trending Topics team with an algorithm. In other words, the team of people who were once paid to sift through the trends and weed out the fakes were replaced by a computer.
It wasn’t long after that detrimental decision that Facebook suffered from an onslaught of criticism over fake news stories that slipped through the cracks. Remember when Megyn Kelly was fired from Fox News because she was a secret liberal? Or how about that time Brad Pitt was found dead after his split from Angelina Jolie hit the press?
Obviously, those things never happened. Still, those stories and plenty of others made the rounds on Facebook and other social media platforms. Partly because 50 percent of people click on anything sent to them, making social media the perfect breeding grounds for scammers.