Earlier this week, executives from some of the Frightful Five companies appeared before Congress. Executives from Google, Facebook and Twitter, had been summoned to explain to the Congress the role that their companies had played in meddling with the US elections last year. At the end of the hearing, these companies told the Congress that they would do more to deal with the fakery that had become a source of concern on social media. Facebook general counsel Colin Stretch said that his company understood that Americans expect authentic experiences when they visit the platform. To ensure that nothing passes unnoticed, Mr. Stretch said that Facebook had doubled its review staff. The number would rise to 20,000. At the same time, the company announced that it was investing in artificial intelligence to weed out the bad actors that were polluting the platform. However, the New York Times carried out an investigation of its own to prove that Facebook wasn’t doing the best it should. For instance, there was a profile of a guy known as Keven S. Eversley. According to his profile, the gentleman is from Minneapolis. However, the web address generated by his profile tells another tale as it appears as Aleksandar Teovski. At the same time, a closer look at his photos, friends, and family reveal that he is from Macedonia.
Tech companies from Silicon Valley have been talking about rooting fake accounts, and yet obvious counterfeits exist. However, critics say that nothing has been done about the issue due to the politics and financial motives that are involved. The New York Times discovered that the profile by Keven Eversley is a good example of what happening on Facebook. Through this profile, the guy is able to auto-post fake and fact-challenged articles that originate from a website known as conswriters.com. For instance, the page recently posted three fake stories. The first article explained how President Trump had ended the warfare against immigrants. The second article involved a case where the FBI had been ordered by Mr. Trump to stop the investigation surrounding the Las Vegas mass shootings. Finally, the last story told of how Hillary Clinton had been hit by terrible news related to Benghazi, Libya. However, these are just juicy stories that are linked to Google ads, and whenever you click, these sites get to earn some revenue. This now explains how Google is related to the Russian investigations. The sites are referred to as clickbait sites.
