Facebook doesn’t want to be Fakebook

There’s a big uproar at Facebook.   The ‘Fake News’ argument has ignited and ‘something has to be done!’

It was decided, to post an advertisement above the ‘news feeds’ giving users tips on how to spot the false stories and how to report them.

Now, I have this smirk on my face, which I need to wash off.   It isn’t a smirk at Facebook’s attempt to stop the posting of phoney stories, it is that people are so stupid as to believe phoney stories.

Years ago, there was an item published on Triond.   The title was; “Johnny Depp Commits Suicide“.

Now, let me start from the beginning, go through the middle, and stop when I reach the end.

The item was published on Triond.   Triond, now defunct, was a writing site.  It was no News channel, it wasn’t even one of those silly celebrities sites.  It was a site, not unlike this one, where people could write what they wanted,

It was a writing site. People could write about washing silk, buying a new car, how to paper train your puppy, and flying to the moon on a broomstick.

The fact the item was on Triond should have raised the flag that it was a spoof.   That is, if people who could connect to the Internet by themselves had the brains of the average hamster.   Unfortunately, there are hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of people who don’t have the brain of the average hamster.

They believed it.

The item was viral for days.   Despite the fact it was not reported on any real news service.  Despite the fact that no one who should know about Johnny Depp knew about this ‘suicide’.

People all over the world viewed the item.  And believed it.

This reality was fully discussed in Triond’s forum, which was on the site.   Other writers, jealous, greedy, wanted to make up a story that went viral.

Some tried by claiming this celeb or that one, was gay.  Some claimed a cure for a disease, and one group, writing under the heading;  Whitehouse Insider, using the name Ulsterman,  decided to pretend they worked at the White House, under Barack Obama.

They knew the racism of America, and other people in the world.  They knew, maybe some of them even felt anger that a Black Man could be in the White House.  So this group, writing under the name ‘Ulsterman’ wrote the most horrendous things about Barack Obama.

They wrote completely fabricated stories.  They took bits and pieces of news stories, added what they wanted, invented if necessary,  some deep into spoofing,  and what they wrote went viral.   It went so viral that Triond’s owners made a special section for the garbage.

Millions of people viewed the rubbish.   Millions of people refused to believe it was fake.   Millions of people wanted to hear the worst things about Barack Obama, so read every word as if it were completely true.  Anyone who dared to question White House Insider was attacked by its defenders.

From 2009 until the day Triond dropped dead in 2015, millions of people read the garbage and believed it.

They absolutely believed it, although it was clearly rubbish.

There was no way to convince these mind dead morons that the White House Insider was the king of Fake News.    No matter what one said, what proof was offered, people believed it.   Even after the site disappeared without a trace, people still believed it.

Today, I am sure, there are thousands of people who still believe that this was Real News.

I say all this to bring the pot to a boil.

For people to have believed White House Insider for so many years makes it obvious that people are stupid.  To take the next step, now that Triond is gone, was write on some concocted web pages giving it some kind of ‘official name’ and link the page to one’s account on Facebook.

Facebook is one of the most ridiculous corners of the Internet.  Millions of people babbling about their lives, linking to what they had for breakfast, linking items they read, and sharing it with other people is how it operates.

There are a lot of stupid people.   They will see something posted by one of their idiot friends and click on it, and believe it.

They will believe it and share it.

They will believe it, especially if the item is an attack or exposure on a person they hate.

Hate is far stronger than love.  We are taught the obverse, but the facts are, writing a sweet piece about a beloved person won’t get half the hits as writing an attack on a person people hate.

During the American election, a hatred of Hilary Clinton was created, and fed, and pushed, so that so much Anti-Hilary garbage covered Facebook.   Along with this were the fake stories about the ever horrible Donald Trump.

Many thought it was funny, I mean who would take this seriously?

Millions did.   Millions of people believed the rubbish published by some guys in Macedonia to make money.  That was the point of the story.  Create a site, get ad sense, post pro Trump garbage, get hits, and earn!   These guys who had never left Macedonia, these guys who had no connection any government, any news service bought Cars out of the money they earned from idiots clicking on their site.

Thousands of dollars, millions of dollars was paid to these young men for their Fake News.

Facebook thinks that by posting some silly ad that people so stupid as to have believed the White House Insider, to have believed the Fake News posted by the Macedonian crew, will read and learn?  Learn?  These people are incapable of that kind of logical deduction.

They believed Johnny Depp committed suicide.   They believed the White House Insider.  They believed the ridiculous things the Macedonians published.   Does Facebook believe that a ‘warning’ that a ‘tutorial’ will help them escape their stupidity?

It won’t work.