Las Vegas shooting: How Google and Facebook promoted fake news
On October 2, the United States bore witness to one of the darkest days in modern history when 64-year-old Stephen Paddock, decided to rain down bullets from his room on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas, taking 59 lives and injuring hundreds in the biggest mass shooting on American soil.
Caught in the crosshairs were thousands of unsuspecting attendees of an open-air indie music festival at the hotel premises. As news of the tragedy started to trickle in – through social media and other internet platforms – it became clear that this was turning out to be the most deadly incident of mass shooting in United States' history.
By the end of the day, it emerged that nearly 60 people had lost their lives, while more than 500 had been left injured in this mindless act of violence. In the aftermath of the attack, several important questions have been raised, one of them being the role of social media and the internet in curbing fake news during such attacks.
A day after the attack, on October 3, Facebook admitted that during the incident and even shortly afterward, its system automatically promoted stories that falsely identified the shooter in the Las Vegas massacre. According to a report published in The New York Post, the social network said links from websites such as The Gateway Pundit and others were posted and spread across its platform Sunday night.
But it wasn't just Facebook. In a script similar to what has been seen before, it appears tech giant Google also failed in its duty and only helped fuel confusion around the attack. Google ran unverified reports from 4chan as a top story in some of its search queries.
The stories on both Google and Facebook claimed that the shooter was an “anti-Trump” Democrat and displayed pictures of a man who was not identified as a suspect. The websites named the shooter as a man named Geary Danley, "a far Left loon" and "a Democrat who liked (MSNBC host) Rachel Maddow" and misreported the motivations behind the attack.
As innocent lives were still being lost in Las Vegas, this slip-up by these portals – which have become the first source of information for most people – led to the focus shifting away from the tragedy and to the attack becoming completely politicised. But that was not it. Even as the authorities prima facie ruled out any terrorist link to the attack, these portals continued to rank and promote multiple stories giving the attack a communal flavour.
After ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack without providing any proof, Facebook and Google let themselves become prime sources to spread misinformation that the Las Vegas shooting was an Islamic terror attack.
Though the links were taken down afterward, the fact that such unverified reports not only appeared but were also promoted for a short while by Facebook and Google shows how little has been done in terms of curbing fake news from spreading through these platforms.
As seen earlier, closer to home in India, fake news not only shapes political opinions but also leads to the loss of life and money. There have been numerous incidents when fake videos and posts on social media have helped fan unrest and widened communal strife.
Social media activists have continually approached these tech giants to find a solution to the problem at hand, however, it looks like not much is being done to soothe their fears.
For now, Facebook has put out a statement assuring that it is "working to fix the issue that allowed this to happen in the first place and deeply regret the confusion this caused.” But what's needed is more than issuing statements and assurances.
As has been observed before, despite several assurances, social media platforms and search engine platforms have yet to adequately tweak their systems to curb the viral spread of misinformation, which — in the past — has caused much confusion and created trouble.
It's time they did more.