[kictanet] #Trending - Facebook caught sponsoring fake news to discredit critics

[Patrick A. M. Maina]

ICYMI: Tech bombshell of the year (link below). According to the trending NYT article, it looks like Facebook has been caught knowingly weaponizing fake news to try muzzle (by smearing/discrediting) people raising concerns about the proliferation of fake news on its platform and/or to divert meaningful discourse on the topic away from Facebook. 
Apparently the M.O. even included pandering to racist / white supremacist / hate media channels and narratives? Ok, this stuff only happens in movies. Please say it ain't so fb...

Incredibly ironic development, but completely vindicates the growing concerns worldwide about the growing dangers of platform concentration, unregulated market power and unregulated PR/media muscle in giant multinationals. 
It will be interesting to see whether (and how) the US gov will discipline its misbehaving, but financially lucrative babies.
Here's the link...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/16/podcasts/the-daily/facebook-zuckerberg-sandberg-russia-election-data.html

Rgds,Patrick.

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