Ross: We are easily being played for suckers

I spoke with a cybercrime expert Alexander Klimburg, author of “The Darkening Web: The War for Cyberspace.”

We talked about the fake news that was shared during the last election by millions of Facebook users.

“The stories that were planted during the presidential election, many of these came from a small village … and they were done by teenagers.”

I’d heard that before. But what he also said was that Facebook would have known that something was fishy here.

“Facebook definitely knew that there were people producing content from that part of the world, that had many different identities. And they didn’t — of course — take the next step to judge the veracity or the honesty of the information.

“They will say they are just the road and they don’t want to judge people’s opinions. The counter-argument is they just did not want the cost or legal responsibility to be involved in public censorship.”

And I understand that Facebook believes in free speech. But why not at least tell us where it’s coming from?

If Facebook knew that stories about the U.S. election were being sent out from Upper Macedonia, why not slap a label on them so we know too?

Every piece of clothing you’re wearing, every bite of food you eat has a label of origin. But the news shared on social media that so many of us base our opinions on? The origin of that is the one thing they censor! And thus are we easily played for suckers.

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