Google and Facebook spread conspiracies, dangerous misinformation in wake of Las Vegas shooting
The senseless slaughter at a concert in Las Vegas this week was a chance for a beleaguered Silicon Valley to prove how its products can help connect worried loved ones and provide up-to-date news during tragedies.
Unfortunately, on Monday morning, the opposite happened.
For nearly 12 hours, Facebook’s Safety Check page for “The Violent Incident in Las Vegas, Nevada” — a mass shooting which left at least 58 people dead and injured over 500 more — highlighted news sites which were at best unreliable, including one called “Alt Right News Blogspot” and another website called “End Time Headlines.”
Facebook’s algorithms for determining which stories are most important also elevated a Gateway Pundit piece to the top of the Crisis Response page. The story in question falsely claimed that the shooting had been carried out by Geary Danley, a “Democrat Who Liked Rachel Maddow, MoveOn.org and Associated with Anti-Trump Army.”
Conspiracy theorists and trolls on 4chan circulated Geary Danley’s name after Las Vegas police identified Marilou Danley as a “person of interest” connected with the shooting. Marilou Danley has since been dismissed as a person of interest; earlier Monday morning, police established that she was out of the country at the time of the shooting and that the shooter had used her slot machine card, which triggered the initial investigation into her involvement.
https://thinkprogress.org/google-and-facebook-spread-conspiracies-dangerous-misinformation-in-wake-of-las-vegas-shooting-598aec9bc60f/
"Mashable approached one of the trolls to ask why they were spreading disinformation.
“For the retweets,” he replied."
= new reply since forum marked as read
one of the comments I saw on Facebook, and I realized I was wasting my time reading through them at that point. 
