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.
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