Facebook Feature Promotiong Inaccurate News Reporting in Social Media

This morning I saw this article on Facebook on my news feed. I was intrigued but thought twice before clicking on it. The title looked like one of those spam links that will spam all your contacts or might install malware/spyware on your device but then again, the source clearly indicated it was from the credible news network GMA so I clicked on it. It led me to this news article on GMA Network’s website headlined “Jinggoy arrives at Sandiganbayan for bail hearing”. It reports about PH Senator Jinggoy Estrada’s hearing for the corruption charge against him. There’s no mention of anything even remotely related to anime.

This is the second time this has happened. Just last week, another news article titled “Overflowing STD virus from Kris Aquino causes a stink at NAIA-1” had gone viral, but the real reason behind the “stink” is an overflowing septic tank. 

            GMA Network has already issued a response to the issue and said that it was neither a spam link nor a hacking attempt on their website. Apparently, Facebook has a feature that enabled users to edit not just the title, but also the snippet—the few short lines of article under the title that gives an overview of what it is about—of any article they share on Facebook.

FACEBOOK SHOULD REALLY REMOVE THIS FEATURE. I don’t see the purpose of enabling this anyway. If users would like to personalize the articles they share or add something to it, isn’t that what the “Write something” box is for? Why give just about anybody the power to edit an article—no matter if it’s just the headline and snippet—that aren’t even theirs? These parts of an article are actually the most important because of the overview they provide and modifying them totally changes everything. If I saved those title and snippet on the screenshot above, would the link make any sense? No, right? Of the thousands of posts on Facebook and any website, the title is the first thing that people look at as they browse a web page and most people don’t even read everything they see. This Facebook feature don’t just pose a potential threat on the reputation of the people and networks involved but also misinforms people and totally defeats the purpose of news reporting and information dissemination.