Fakebook: How a Loophole Allows for Fake News

I recently read an article about a loophole that allows Facebook users to get around their updated policies and post untrue things. Since 2016, Facebook has been part of the fight against fake news and the spread of misinformation. In order to combat these things, they have recently updated their policies and disabled a feature that allows people to do this. This was possible the "link preview" feature, which allows users to post a preview of a link or news article on their feed. The preview includes an image, sample text, and headline of the article, and all of these elements are taken from the website to be formatted on Facebook. This feature allowed people to edit the headline of the article to make it say whatever they want. As I said before, this feature was disabled in June of 2017, and Facebook no longer allowed it's users to edit anything about the link preview.

However, someone has discovered recently that this feature is still available. An anonymous source notified Mashable of this glitch, stating "If I am posting something from Mashable from a Facebook Page about how important vaccines are, I could now change the headline to say 'New Report Finds Vaccines Are Bogus.'" A few days later, this person messaged Facebook directly notifying them that the glitch had resurfaced. Facebook responded saying "We received your report and appreciate your patience as we work to fix technical problems on Facebook," the company said. “Though we can’t update everyone who submits a report, we’re using your feedback to improve the Facebook experience for everyone.”


This seems like a pretty standard Facebook response.

Also recently, Facebook has had issues with their Groups feature, which allows people to communicate with each other privately, Some groups have been created for the use of propaganda, conspiracy theorists, or for things that violate Facebook's terms of service. They issued a statement saying that their policies still apply, and are enforceable, to Facebook Groups.

It seems to me like Facebook has a lot of work to do in regards to the spread of misinformation.

The U.S. Supreme Court: A Very Brief History

The United States Supreme Court has been around since the beginning of our country. It was established on March 4, 1789 in accordance with Article III of the United States Constitution. It established that the Court would have judicial power over all cases that come to it, but that's about it. It doesn't say how many people are to be on this court or the process by which they would receive a case. It just simply states that the Supreme Court would exist and have judicial power over cases. So at this time period in the country, they had just declared their independence from Great Britain and fought and defeated them in a war over it. Later, in 1803, the court case of Marbury v. Madison set the precedent of "judicial review." A precedent is a case decision that can be looked back upon to help decide more recent cases. Judicial review means that the Supreme Court has the power to "review all actions by all departments of government and deem them constitutional or not." This basically means that the Court has the power to decide whether or not the rest of the federal government is complying with the Constitution. This is part of the checks and balances system in place to make sure that no one branch of government is more powerful than the other two.

I did find the video very interesting. I liked getting to hear the justices opinions on what the day-to-day life of a Supreme Court justice is like and how the Court has evolved over time. They mentioned that they all shake hands with all the other justices before they sit down to discuss a case, because if you make that physical connection before you argue, you are less likely to "hold a grudge," as one justice put it, with someone else who disagrees with you. I also found it humorous to hear that there are three kinds of arguments in the Court: the one you prepare to make, the one you actually make, and the one you with you would have made. They used a lot of terms in the video I am not familiar with, so it was kind of challenging for me to understand what they were talking about, but I found the whole thing to be very interesting and to see how the Court has grown and evolved over time.

And if anyone wants the links to the videos, here they are: Part 1 and Part 2.

A Defense for College Athlete's Free Speech

I recently read an article about an incident of First Amendment rights, specifically those of freedom of speech, being violated. This particular article was published in January of 2018, so this happened not that long ago, and told of a university violating the First Amendment rights of one of its student athletes.

The student's name is Donald De La Haye, and he was a football player for the University of Central Florida (UCF). He received an athletic scholarship, which he said is the only thing that allowed him to attend the university. Donald, like most teens and young adults these days, is an avid user of social media. He had a rather large following on Instagram and YouTube, with over ten thousand YouTube subscribers. He posts his own content regularly about his life and what it's like being a college student. These videos are monetized, meaning that YouTube essentially pays Donald for uploading his original content. UCF, however, doesn't like that he gets paid for uploading videos to YouTube.

According to the University of Central Florida, this violates NCAA by-law 12.4.4, which is part of a larger by-law which "limit[s] student expression, including when a student receives compensation in connection with the use of a student’s name, image, appearance, or physical attributes." The university then kicked Donald off the football team and rescinded his athletic scholarship.

The First Amendment states that all citizens have freedom of speech, and this right to freely express oneself should not be limited because that person decided to attend a university that adheres to the NCAA by-laws. I do believe there is something to be said about following rules, but when the rules begin to limit a person's freedom of speech, I believe that particular rule should be rethought. Being represented by the Goldwater Institute, the Texas Public Policy Foundation, and Roetzel & Andress, LPA, Donald has asked the University of Central Florida to undo its unlawful decision by restoring his scholarship. The court case is De La Haye v. Hitt.