The thing about fake news is that it’s designed to look like actual news — just like fake Gucci and real Gucci both look like the same pretentious “fashion”. Otherwise, what’s the point. At some point, even reasonably informed people are going to be suckered by fake news — except maybe uncle Charlie, who doesn’t realise that chemtrails aren’t a thing, the world is actually round and that Alex Jones is a performance artist that only gives a crap about selling suspicious supplements to as many people as possible.
It’s the saner portion of that demographic that Facebook’s going to be helping out. Misinformation during the time of coronavirus is a dangerous thing — you might actually listen to Donald Trump and poison yourself using fish tank cleaning chemicals, for instance.
Get your mind right
Which is why Facebook’s got a new initiative going at present. If you have, at any point, ‘liked’ fake coronavirus information that was subsequently removed (once it was found to be produced by internet bovines), Facebook will start showing you messages correcting that incorrect info.
The company said “These messages will connect people to COVID-19 myths debunked by the WHO including ones we’ve removed from our platform for leading to imminent physical harm. We want to connect people who may have interacted with harmful misinformation about the virus with the truth from authoritative sources in case they see or hear these claims again off of Facebook. People will start seeing these messages in the coming weeks.”
This won’t have much impact on the sort of person who believes that COVID-19 comes from 5G or that Bill Gates wants to usher in the end times for humanity using vaccines or any one of hundreds of equally stupid conspiracies. It should do just fine with people who are scared and just trying to stay safe in a very confusing and, let’s be honest, frightening time. The messages will begin appearing on News Feeds in the coming weeks. If you find you’ve been tricked by fake coronavirus news, don’t feel bad. Its whole job is to look like real news. Otherwise most folks would see it for the bullshit it is, right off the bat.
