D. ZBORNAK
Staff Lampoonist
In a time when social media dominates news coverage, a frustrating and sometimes dangerous issue is the spread of false information. In an effort to combat the spread of fake news, Facebook has teamed up with poopsenders.com to automatically send a charming package of feces to anyone who shares an invalid news article online.
This social epidemic of propagating false information, while not necessarily intentional, has become a cause for great concern. People have begun to use less discernment in fact-checking popular news stories, resulting in confusion over what and what not to believe.
Obama said it best in a recent interview where he stated that “everything is true and nothing is true.” When fake news looks believable, everything becomes an opinion up for debate and facts are no longer concrete.
All of this is why Facebook and poopsenders.com agreed to work together to step up the game for news quality control. They developed a plan where, when an article containing false information is shared on Facebook, poopsenders.com staff will receive a notification with the guilty party’s address and have a shipment of poop sent on its merry way.
Project leader Jack Pott described the inspiration for the experiment.
“The general premise of sending poop to misinformed gossipers is really to employ a sort of positive punishment. We’re hoping that the recipients of these ‘gifts’ will learn to associate them with their failure to fact-check. As a result, we hope this will deter any further irresponsible spreading of misinformation,” he said.
Soon after starting this global disciplinary project, Facebook had received letters from several individuals expressing their gratitude for increasing their critical analysis skills with regard to finding information online.
“I had recently shared an article that mentioned using cement shoes to keep children from being too hyperactive and cluttering up their homes. I thought it was genius,” one person wrote. “The next day, though, I received an M&M bag full of rabbit droppings and a note saying ‘don’t share rubbish unless you can eat it.’ It had a huge positive impact on my desire to fact-check better before sharing information.”
Facebook went on to explain how this behavioral experiment also benefits their business. Leaders from the company mentioned how when an individual is caught red-handed, the article they shared is automatically deleted into oblivion. This helps to declutter the popular social media site of useless or misleading information.
The staff of poopsenders.com opted to be interviewed anonymously, but they mentioned how they keep track of who they send presents to involving this experiment. They went on to explain that the type and size of poop an individual receives depends on their number of offenses and the severity of the misinformation spread. First-time offenders are usually given a slap on the wrist and a goldfish turd. Rick Astley videos disguised as exam answer sheets are punished much more severely
As of now, Facebook could not be happier with the drop in false information spreading and the desire by their users to find credible resources with each other. If this trend continues, poopsenders.com promised to send a commemorative bag of fertilizer to everybody they formerly punished.