If your “FAKEbook” feed has recently started looking like a clearance rack of the fairytale section of your local book store, trust me – you’re not alone. In a single evening recently, mine proudly served up a buffet of make-believe: Phil Collins receiving Kennedy Center Honors from President Trump, Dolly Parton launching something called “Dolly’s Dream Animal Sanctuary,” and Trump generously donating his private jet to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Plus lots of fake AI stories.
None of it happened. Not even a little. This isn’t a case of someone getting a detail wrong – like misquoting Trump or mixing up the paint job on a plane. These are full- blown fabrications, conjured out of thin air and lobbed into your feed like they’re gospel. And Facebook doesn’t seem to be doing much about it.
Facebook ditched its left-leaning “fact-checkers” this year – which, let’s be honest, were never exactly neutral referees. Fine. Good riddance. But refusing to delete outright fabrications? These stories aren’t needle-in-a-haystack mysteries; they’re low-hanging fruit.
Instead, META appears to be leaning on crowdsourced fact-checking (community notes system) to swat down “misinformation.” And with AI-generated nonsense and deepfakes flying at us faster than ever, FAKEbook looks wildly unprepared to navigate the digital minefield it helped create.
Meanwhile, the scammers keep churning out clickbait, and we’re left playing whack-a- mole by flagging the posts after the damage is done. By then, the lie has already circled the globe two or three times before the truth even finds its shoes.
If FAKEbook doesn’t get its act together before the next election, buckle up. At this rate, the next viral masterpiece will swear Trump sent a nuke to Russia or that everyone’s bank account is being forcibly converted to Bitcoin by Tuesday. There will be plenty of lies told for sure – and 99% of them will be about Trump and the Republicans.