Fake News on Face Book

The British Broadcasting Corporation is having a discussion on fake sites, fake news and especially those false stories on Facebook.

There are two things at work here, although most people will not perceive it.  The first is the ease of getting onto the Internet.

In ancient days one had to know how to get on, know how to get to a site; this required education and intelligence.  Hence anyone who was on the ‘Net in those days was rather saavy and if you said ‘There’s a Full Moon tonight” they knew how to check it and jump in your face if you were misleading them

Today, anyone can get on the ‘Net, anyone can get a place to post, anyone can write anything about anything.  There is very little ‘supervision’ if any, there are few people who will read an item if it isn’t directly in their path, (and by ‘path’ I mean interests, view points, research).

The second issue concerns the depth of ignorance of most people.   They don’t know, they don’t care to know, and will accept what is in their path and cling to it.

This was proven years ago by “Whitehouse Insider”, a complete hoax which was hosted by Stanza until Triond, it’s website, went down.    Today, people still think it was true.

Facebook has become extremely popular.  People post all sorts of items.  Some post false news because they know their audience isn’t too bright.

They know they’ll get hits, spread the ignorance, and even if the item is removed, they can always fling it on some free hosting site designed to look legitimate.

Many people write items and put the link on Facebook to garner hits.   On paying sites this is simply ‘networking’.   To put up a false news story on a paying site, especially when one is writing about something that only few would know of can often go ‘viral’.

When Mnofdestiny wrote his spoof on the ‘death’ of Johnny Depp he was garnering millions (no exaggeration) of hits.  He thought it was funny, then felt a bit ashamed.

Ulsterman, who wrote “The Whitehouse Insider”,  never felt shame.  He had tapped into a deep well of racists who hated Obama and wanted to read the worst possible things about him.

On Facebook, people betray their prejudice by their posts.  Sure, this one will always find some silly ‘test’ and post it, and that one will find some music video, but others will post something that has no value save to enflame, annoy, or tap into hatred.

In America, sexism is more virulent than even racism.  Things Trump said about Clinton couldn’t happen in Jamaica.  Not only would he lose the election, badly, but people would rise up against him.

To use Facebook to post anti-Clinton rubbish would find a hungry market among sexist and racists, the same kind of people who swallowed Whitehouse Insider whole, without, for one second, pondering if it were true or even near true.

People want to believe the worst things about those they hate.  Any little lie will be emblazoned on their foreheads.

That Facebook does very little to monitor its site means that one can export more rubbish to wash ashore.