Tags: Fake News »»»» Fake Advertising »»»» Facebook
In my previous posting I documented an outright fake advertisement found on Facebook, my attempt to report this as a fake advertisement, and Facebook's refusal to take action. The same advertisement was posted by two separate Facebook pages, each containing postings with Cyrillic text, fitting the pattern of Russian interference. Therefore it's necessary to get some attention at Facebook, not just an automated review system. The problem is that Facebook doesn't have a public email address to use.
What follows is my attempt to report to Facebook that Facebook has refused to take action on a false advertisement.
That advertisement made clearly false claims that were easy to verify as false claims. I saw the same advertisement posted by two different Facebook pages, reported it each time, and Facebook refused to take any action. See Facebook ignoring reported advertisement containing outright lies
The next step then is to attempt to reach a human being, or a higher-up. It's likely the refusal to take action was made by an algorithm. A human who is given the full set of evidence should reach a conclusion that something is amiss.
Clicking on the "Report Abuse" link took me to this page:
https://www.facebook.com/help/181495968648557/
I wrote the following into the box:
Earlier today in my FB news feed, I came across a Sponsored Posting (advertisement) that seemed like incredible news -- but was actually completely false. The post claimed that Sweden was to be the first country to pull out of the Euro. A search on Google News turned up nothing, and then I remembered -- SWEDEN DOES NOT USE THE EURO.
Hence, the advertisement text was completely false.
I reported the advertisement, and got a reply that it did not violate any policy, that Facebook would do nothing about it, and thanked me for making the report.
After some further digging, I discovered the advertisement was posted by a suspicious Facebook page that contains postings written in Cyrillic. That other people have posted about this page that it is a Russian Fake News page.
Then I found a second advertisement - the same ad - posted by a second page, that has the same characteristics (a few random posts with text in Cyrillic).
THE PROBLEM IS THAT IN BOTH CASES FACEBOOK REFUSED TO TAKE ACTION ON WHAT IS OBVIOUSLY A FAKE NEWS ADVERTISEMENT.
The question is -- Why is Facebook claiming to be addressing the Fake News problem, but then not doing anything about a flagrant fake news incident?
I've posted details on my blog:
https://techsparx.com/blog/2019/02/fb-ignores-false-ads.html
