Facebook is having a real headache this week. Not only is Mark Zuckerberg being accused of trying to use the world’s largest social media engine to promote Hillary Clinton’s Presidential bid, but Facebook has also been telling users that they are dead.
Were you one of the many people, including Marl Zuckerberg himself, who was accidentally told by Facebook that you had died? On Friday countless users saw the following banner atop their profiles:
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“Remembering “John Smith”: We hope people who love “John Smith” will find comfort in the things others share to remember and celebrate his/her life.”
https://twitter.com/drudgeheadlines/status/797187149871333376
The company is blaming this awkward situation on a technical glitch. It released a statement saying, “For a brief period today [Friday], a message meant for memorialized profiles was mistakenly posted to other accounts. This was a terrible error that we have now fixed. We are very sorry that this happened and we worked as quickly as possible to fix it.”
Countless Facebook users took to Twitter to mock the company over the mistake.
This could not come at a worse time for the social network as Facebook is currently under fire for how its news feeds handled coverage of this year’s Presidential Elections.
https://twitter.com/technolopypro/status/797650387209752580
Some think that Zuckerberg was “in the bag” for Hillary Clinton. Over the summer it was widely reported that people who work for Facebook had been accused of filtering news feeds with their own political biases. And many false headlines from less than credible websites have been posted on Facebook lately as well as hoaxes from satirical sites which were accepted as real news.
It is, of course, no surprise that such accusations have been made considering how divisive this year’s election was.
Zuckerberg responded to the allegations saying, “Personally, I think the idea that fake news on Facebook influenced the election in any way is a pretty crazy idea. [There is] a profound lack of empathy in asserting that the only reason somebody voted the way they did is they saw some fake news.”
The 32 year old billionaire added, “Why would you think there would be fake news on one side and not on the other?”
And Zuckerberg made the following comments on his own Facebook page the other day.
“Of all the content on Facebook, more than 99% of what people see is authentic. Only a very small amount is fake news and hoaxes. The hoaxes that do exist are not limited to one partisan view, or even to politics. Overall, this makes it extremely unlikely hoaxes changed the outcome of this election in one direction or the other.”
But this may not have helped. The New York Times is reporting that at a company meeting held on Thursday, many Facebook employees expressed dissatisfaction with how Zuckerberg has addressed this issue.
The bottom line here is that everyone should check where the information that they see anywhere on line is coming from. If it comes from a blog called “DonaldTrumpIsGod.com, ” “HillaryIsTheDevil.com, ” “DonaldTrumpIsaRacist.org” or any similarly titled website then it is probably not a credible source of information.
So do not blame Facebook or Mark Zuckerberg if you fall for an Internet hoax in the future.
