Facebook – the future of news reporting.
Look, we’ve all been there. Your best friend posts a news story with an exceptionally long comment denouncing all content in the article as blasphemous or screaming at the top of his or her lungs about the problematic nature of the article’s title. Little does your friend know, however, is that the story they shared is false. Perhaps you don’t know either and you share the story, too, and broadcast your fury to everyone you graduated high school with. It’s embarrassing, I know. You created a comment chain that you were not prepared to deal with. You now have more notifications than you ever had from people you haven’t spoken with in arguably decades.
I have collected for your viewing pleasure and potential embarrassment some of the popular stories that were shared on Facebook that were straight-up false. Luckily, I can guarantee that if you share this story, it won’t be a fake news story.
Or is it?
If you share/like this photo, Facebook will NOT donate a certain amount of money to the cause.
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These posts are notoriously good at making you feel like the worst person on planet Earth when you scroll past them. While your rationale might be that it can’t hurt to share or like the image, you’re still not doing anything to help the person or the cause. Go get your credit card and actually donate to a charity instead of taking the lazy way out.
Protect yourself from government surveillance with this copied and pasted status!
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You know it’s going to be a bad day when you see just one of these posts on your Facebook feed when you log in. It’s like a virus – all it takes is one person. Not shockingly, the law doesn’t work like this – no matter how fluffed up the message is with legal jargon. You can’t un-agree with the Terms and Conditions page you didn’t read when you signed up for Facebook. If you don’t want to be watched on Facebook, deactivate your account.
Don’t microwave your iPhone.
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I can’t believe some people actually believed this nonsense. Apparently with Apple’s iOs 8, you could charge your phone through microwave frequencies. You popped your phone in the microwave and your battery would charge.
Do I really need to explain why this is ridiculous?
The Three-Breasted Lady
@MsVegas15 InstagramInstagram user, Msvegas15, claimed to have had a boob job that gave her a third boob in between her two regular ones. She became a momentary Internet sensation and even booked interviews with Jimmy Kimmel and Vice only to be exposed as a hoax by a salon in Florida.
I still get this story on my news feed and I find it increasingly hard to believe that anyone would fall for this stuff.
Facebook is not going to start charging a monthly fee.
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This one pops up sporadically every year.
People were up-in-arms when a rumor began to circulate that about how Facebook was planning to charge a $2.99 monthly fee. Like always, no one checked the validity of their news sources. It’s not true and – if you look at Facebook’s home page – the company has guaranteed that the social media platform will be free forever.
China isn’t selling canned air due to rising smog levels.
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The Facebook “story” reported that China responded to its dangerous smog levels by selling canned oxygen. Apparently, one businessman sold “10 million cans in just 10 days.”
None of it was true, of course. The real reason for the story was to promote the clean air of Guizhou Province – kind of like how New York City promoted its tap water with the same exact tactic. Unfortunately, that real reason was buried underneath terrible news reporting and endless Facebook comments.
France didn’t make sending emails after 6 p.m. illegal.
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It’s a nice idea, though.
The story alleged that the entire country of France was forbidden to send emails after 6 p.m. However, the real story is that the ban was not a law, but rather a union agreement that actually didn’t forbid anyone from sending work emails past a certain time. It only gave workers the right to not respond to work emails during their off hours.
Can we start working on bringing that agreement to the United States? That would be great, thanks.
The “accidental text” wedding photo is from a rap video.
This is the story that I am the most disappointed to learn isn’t true, but I digress. Remember this photo?
Yes, it was a great story – and quite funny, too. The “wedding crashers,” however, are actually a rap group that was shooting a music video in Detroit, Michigan. Instead of them crashing the wedding, the wedding party photobombed them instead. In short? The text message screencap is tragically fake.
Women aren’t not exercising because of their large breasts.
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A research “study” from the University of Portsmith reported that one in five women avoid exercise due to discomfort from their breasts. However, if you actually read the study, you’d learn that the size of the breasts has nothing to do with the study’s findings. In a pool of only 249 people, breasts were listed as the fourth most common reason for not exercising – falling behind energy, time and health issues. Unfortunately, people have little interest in lack of energy, time to health complications, but have all the time in the world for boobs.
A 4chan screenshot was not sold for $90,000 on eBay.
I mean, I suppose with the current art climate, this story is totally plausible. Have your faith in humanity and the art world restored when you learn that this screenshot:
was not sold for $90,000. Yes, the bids on the item skyrocketed in the first 36 hours after the item was posted, but I think we failed to remember that 4Chan is notorious for executing stupid pranks like these on a regular basis.
In addition, eBay allows the winning bidder back out at the last second if they do not want to purchase the item – a key feature that was “helpfully” omitted from the story.
