Facebook in Digital Dilemma over Click Farms Fake Cancer Babies Story

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(Newswire.net — June 1, 2017) — 

It was the second time Facebook was disabling the account after initially removing it, following complaints. The social network has then re-enabled the account hours later. A spokesperson for the firm was not categorical about the reason for the u-turn, and only explained that it was being investigated.

Most people have been left bewildered by the move and questioned Facebook’s complaints procedure. The case involved a fake story posted in early February about a child from Cambridgeshire, whose image was used alongside a fake call for help.

The message that accompanied the photos said the baby had cancer and needed money for surgery. It went on further to say Facebook would donate money for each “like” comment or share every viewer made on the message.

It got over a million responses.

Security analysts told the BBC that it was a scamming tactic called “like farming.” The scammer tries to con as many people as users to show solidarity and empathy with “likes,” comments and shares.

These people are later targeted with follow-up messages or sell their profile information to shady marketers.

The mother of the child was visibly distressed when she found out photos of her child had been used for a fake news scam story on Facebook.

The woman, Sarah Allen, who lives in St Neots, Cambridgeshire, said she had been inundated with calls and messages about her child, Jasper having cancer, which was false information.

Jasper didn’t have cancer. It turned out that the images that were used by the Internet fake news conmen were from when the little boy had chickenpox.

Whilst Facebook promptly pulled off the fake message with Jasper’s images in response to the complaints, it left other similar cancer posts that also featured children. BBC discovered that one of the images was that of a three-year-old girl from England who had a road accident injury in 2015. The images are owned by her parents.

When contacted, the mother of the girl said she was extremely upset about the image of her daughter on the Internet and wanted it pulled off immediately.

Other images of children used in similar fake plea stories include that of a Texas teenage boy who had viral meningitis and was in coma. His family had set up a separate crowdfunding campaign to help raise funds for the child’s treatment.

There’s another photo of a young Texas girl with progreria, a genetic disorder that makes the patient age abnormally fast. Her mother had raised awareness about her child’s condition on her blog.

Even so, another baby girl from Pennsylvania who was suffering from a birth defect on the abdomen called omphalocele, and needed an operation was used. He parents had shared images of her surgery operation.

From Florida, another baby  with a birth defect of the diagram was also used. The local press had featured her photos in news and articles.

But the images used by the scam artists were not limited to living children alone. The account also featured several photos of dead young children in coffins and said viewers would have 76 years of ill luck if they scrolled past the post without liking or sharing it.

This is particular was a clear breach of Facebook’s community standards, which forbids posts that uses images which copyright belonged to other people.

The rule added that the social network does not require the copyright owner to lodge a complaint before taking appropriate action.

Facebook first deactivated the fraud account that used Jasper’s images on January 10 illegally, after Mrs. Allen sent several messages to its complaints unit, but the company reversed itself the next day and made the account active again.

Then on the afternoon of February 21, it took the account offline again, but re-activated it five hours later.

A cybersecurity expert, Prof Alan Woodward from the University of Surrey told the BBC it appeared that Facebook had not scrutinized the case closely enough despite the publicity it attracted.

He said anyone had the right appeal against the account being deactivated, but the speed at which the account that posted the fake story was restored indicated that not much due process had been taken in checking it out.

Prof. Woodward concluded that what that points to is that Facebook is doing the bare minimum in this case.

The advent of fake news and how it affects all of us

The digitalization of our lives, including the way we send and receive news is finally showing one of its ugly sides: THE ADVENT OF FAKE NEWS                .

Since the past one year, it has become almost practically difficult to turn on the PC or scroll through news site on the cell phone without coming across some fake news article.

But the worse reality is that it’s not always easy to identify the authentic news from the fake ones. Besides, because humans by nature love the bizarre and odd which fake news often conjure and/or play up, they get the higher volumes of shares, likes and clicks. 

And that is where the problem lies and the reason it has become widespread. Fake news are viable channels for unscrupulous persons to gain unfair advantage in their business or vocation or make a killing in financial returns.

In an age where people no longer rely on conventional news sources and channels and are fed and inundated with news in torrents, unfiltered and unverified; fake news has simply become viral and a part of our lives.

First, what is ‘fake news’? It is not merely distorting or colouring facts or under-reporting them to suit an ideological bias. It involves deliberately fabricated and totally false stories that show up on the first page of Google search or highlight on Facebook news feed.

The fake news phenomenon reached scary proportions and became more globally highlighted during the 2016 presidential election in the US. One driving objective, of course, was to push out streams of partisan misinformation about a candidate.

The other motive was purely commercial. Like in the case of one Cameron Harris, a new college graduate, was reported by the New York Times of posting fake news about ballot boxes being stuffed in Ohio on his web address, ChristianTimesNewspaper.com, and he had purchased it for $5.

The story received wide views, shared over 6 million times and generated massive dividends in Google ads for Haris.

So, how do we stem this dangerous tide?

Google has promised that it would stop placing ads on websites that carry or promote fabricated stories. That singular move deprived Haris of a million dollars payoff when he attempted to sell his $5 website.

Facebook too has said that it will independently fact-check stories users flag as potential fake news. Such stories will drop in rating in its newsfeed. But that strategy is fraught with underlying risks and subject to abuse.

“Digital entrepreneur must also protect themselves from the scourge of fake news and avoid being inadvertently caught in the web or indirectly affected by hosting and working with a reputable local digital marketing agency.” –  Digital Marketing Expert Brendam from Freeparking  CreateASite Easy DIY Website Builder|Freeparking

Perhaps the best option is that we all need to be more media-savvy.  Politicians too must pledge to be tolerant of opposing views and stories and stop branding as “fake news” any news item that counter their interests or challenge their worldview.