Abducting women for sex trafficking, harvesting their body parts, how low can white van man go? Facebook algorithm starts a panic

6 Dec, 2019 13:04Get short URL

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Thanks to its own algorithm, Facebook is susceptible to generating widespread panic as fake posts are shared across the social media platform without any filter from account users. The latest victim is white van man.

The much-maligned white van man has endured a lot in his time. From playing the voter stereotype unwelcomingly courted by political parties at British election time to being the butt of countless jokes he now faces allegations of kidnapping women and selling them into sex slavery or harvesting their body parts. All thanks to Facebook.

Thanks largely to the social media giant’s algorithms and partly to the prevalence of men driving white vans, the two converged to provide a totally manufactured panic in the US which, while based solely on the idiosyncrasy of the app, saw the Mayor of Baltimore Bernard Young issue a warning to people saying,  “Make sure you keep your cell phone in case somebody tries to abduct you.”

Except in reality, there were no white van men trying to abduct women to traffick them as sex slaves or to harvest their body parts.

So widespread the alarm has become (it is still spreading) that we had the embarrassment of a Baltimore Police Department spokesman admitting that while the online panic had prompted the mayor of his city to issue a public warning, there had not been, “any reports of actual incidents.”

Meaning the mayor felt compelled to warn his fellow citizens of, well, nothing.

Admitting that the police had issued no warning about the white van kidnappers, this dimwit declared, “but it was all over Facebook.”ALSO ON RT.COM

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There we have it. Facebook. But it is not just this chap who succumbed to the collective delusion. Another Baltimore resident reported men in a white van staring at her on her Instagram account (also owned by Facebook), compelled to do so because she felt they were “part of a bigger story.”

Yet another Baltimore woman used a stock image of a man with a white van accompanied by the advice, “When you come out into the mall parking lot, and you see a van like this parked next to your car, DO NOT GO TO YOUR CAR.”

This post was shared more than 5,000 times and, remember, was based on nothing but make-believe.. As was a further report from South Carolina, shared more than 150,000 times. Meanwhile, a white van man in Detroit reported harassment based on these spurious Facebook posts, which is, sadly, inevitable.

Eventually Facebook brought in a third party company to check over the fake news and post warnings on messages that the information they contained was false. But that doesn’t stop the screen grabs already in circulation or new posts generating more concern.

The whole furore brings to mind the  Orson Welles’ mischievous 1938 radio broadcast of the HG Wells novel ‘War of the Worlds’ which for more than 80 years after the event was attributed with causing mass panic across the States from people who believed they were under attack as part of an alien invasion.

Although that became the stuff of urban legend, reports of the mayhem were grossly exaggerated.ALSO ON RT.COMTechnology was supposed to make us more capable. Instead it has made us scarily dependent

The extent of the panic was actually limited to a bunch of yokels from Grover’s Mill shooting buckshot at their town’s water tower in the mistaken belief that it had been turned into a giant Martian war machine.

This may have had more to do with the local moonshine than any genuine panic but it does demonstrate the complete surrender of common sense. Just like moonshine and a tall story, Facebook discourages the need for too much critical thinking.

It doles up suggestions to individuals based on their their posts, their friends and anything else it can pick from their rich online profiles and rewards them with a warm fuzzy feeling of validation if they could just share these posts with the rest of their online friends.

So these sad and deluded people unwittingly spread fear and panic across the globe without even thinking about it because it was on Facebook.

By Damian Wilson, UK journalist & political communications specialist

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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.OPED