Facebook’s Safety Check page for the Las Vegas shooting promotes “alt-right news” | The future of business
▻https://www.fastcompany.com/40475749/facebooks-safety-check-page-for-the-las-vegas-shooting-promotes-alt-rig
In the wake of the deadly shooting in Las Vegas last night that left more than 50 dead and hundreds injured, people around the world are scrambling to get up-to-date information. Technology platforms like Facebook and Google are obviously go-to sources for news updates, but they’re not proving very reliable.
On Facebook’s dedicated “Safety Check” page for the Las Vegas massacre–which says it lets users “connect with friends and family and find and give help after a crisis”–one of the top stories earlier today was from a Blogspot titled “Alt-Right News.” The article describes a female person of interest and calls her husband a “Trump-hating Rachel Maddow fan,” thanks to screenshots of a Facebook page.
Et l’hypocrisie en prime
Update: A Facebook spokesperson provided us with this statement:
“Our Global Security Operations Center spotted the post this morning and removed it. However, its removal was delayed by a few minutes, allowing it to be screen captured and circulated online. We are working to fix the issue that allowed this to happen in the first place and deeply regret the confusion this caused.”
Related: What Safety Check Reveals About Facebook’s Changing Role
It should be noted that I captured the screenshot myself. Both my colleagues and I saw the post–along with other questionable links–on the “Safety Check” site for at least thirty minutes.CGW