Update: Facebook removed the profile.
Facebook still needs work on the ability to report content and communities.
I came across a post from a page named “Sarah Huckabee PressSec” that was a clearly fictional exchange (“joke”) that includes some debunked conspiracy theories about Obama. The username is @pressecretary (note only two “s”s) and the page has a lot of posts and photos that seem somewhat legitimate, so it is easy for a casual observer to mistake it for a verified, official page. It does not have the Facebook verified badge, though, and under the “About” button it’s listed as a community. There doesn’t seem to be any information about who created the page. The post has 57k shares and 27k comments currently. Glancing through the comments makes it clear that a lot of people think the post is factual.
I heard Facebook has the ability to report false news now, so I tried to report the post. Maybe the option is not available on Facebook pages, or only if the post includes a link, but the option didn’t appear for me. There was a category “I don’t think this should be on Facebook,” but under that there was nothing to report it as false or impersonation. I chose the closest among the available options: “this is inappropriate, annoying, or not funny.” There is no ability to add a comment to the report to clarify it further. I expect nothing will come of this, since it’s not the most accurate categorization.
Then I tried to report the page itself. “I don’t think this should be on Facebook” appears there as well, but again nothing about false information or impersonation. The only options were: threatening/violent/suicidal, hate speech, sexually explicit, and describes buying/selling drugs/guns/adult products.
I tried the category “It’s a scam” but then it gave me two things I could do: block the profile or hide posts from it. There was a “back” button and a “cancel” button, which seems to indicate nothing was being reported to Facebook; these were just options I could do to avoid seeing the profile/posts on my timeline. That seems like a pretty big failure for reporting scams.
Responses
★ Tim Loyer, Jeremiah Ragsdale, Jamie Maldonado, and 5 others
Douglas Ray – It seems like if facebook had a simple "fake" option in that system, it would be heavily mis-used as a propaganda device, becoming pretty expensive for facebook to moderate. It sure would be good if there was an easy way to engage in community vetting, though. I certainly appreciate that there are folks like you who will look into things like that and identify such BS. The internet has so much of that.
Gregor Morrill – The option does -- or did -- exist. In my research I saw screenshots of it. I imagine nothing automatically happens when you report false news. But who knows, with The Algorithm, what we see is up to them. :)
Kind of related: I did see that FB is going to soon have an option to tell you if you liked or shared posts connected to the Russian ad buys. That's a very specific instance of false news being shared, though. Unfortunately the form I wrote about here is more widespread and difficult to moderate, at least without FB investing majorly in their support staff.
Edit: I did try looking at a friend's random link and the reporting options. There was a "Feedback on this post" option which let you tag multiple things, including "False Information" and apparently after giving feedback you could report. I didn't go through the process, though.
Edit 2: phrasing.
Douglas Ray – We should lobby facebook to have an easy way to report fake news as an economic stimulus measure. Because then they would have to hire an army of out-of-work journalists to investigate all the reports.
gRegor Morrill – Well, this is pleasantly surprising. Facebook responded and removed the profile, based on my “annoying or uninteresting” report:
Thanks for taking the time to report something you feel may go against the Facebook Community Standards. We removed Sarah Huckabee PresSec’s profile from Facebook. If Sarah Huckabee PresSec’s profile is restored, the photo you reported might reappear. If this happens, please feel free to report it again.
Gregor Morrill – Well, this is pleasantly surprising. Facebook responded and removed the profile, based on my “annoying or uninteresting” report:
> Thanks for taking the time to report something you feel may go against the Facebook Community Standards. We removed Sarah Huckabee PresSec’s profile from Facebook. If Sarah Huckabee PresSec’s profile is restored, the photo you reported might reappear. If this happens, please feel free to report it again.
@Jennifer Stavros – @gRegorLove This post might get some more/ desired attention on LI or Medium.Maybe a cross post there would get some more feedback & results
gRegor Morrill – Surprisingly they already responded and removed the profile.
Lowry Garuhtahz – facebook.com/themarysue/pos…
One approach might be to report the post repeatedly, using all of the catagories, hoping to raise enough of a ruckus in the algorythm that a an organically intelligent human ends up investigating it.