Facebook Facepalm Moment As Fake News Is Seen Littering Mark Zuckerberg's Statement On How FB Will Combat The Problem

This past weekend, we talked about how Facebook and its founder Mark Zuckerberg were planning to combat the "fake news" problem we've likely all seen on a regular basis. This comes hot on the heels of Donald Trump becoming president-elect, as it's a no secret that this political season has been rife with misleading headlines and information.

Well, Zuckerberg isn't immune to irony, and has just been hit with what might be his biggest dose. In the very post where he talks about his company's plans to eradicate fake news, two blatantly fake news posts could be found right beside it:

What makes this truly ridiculous is that these ads were paid, and Facebook is supposed to give the a-OK to all ads that come through. So how is it that two blatantly fake news posts that mimic real websites were allowed to advertise? No, Hugh Hefner did not lose is life, and no, Tiger Woods has not left the PGA.

The worst thing about ads like these is that when clicked, fake websites present themselves that are meant to mimic real websites, such as ESPN in the example below. 

We'd be able to take Facebook's promise of eradicating fake news from the site more seriously if such blatantly false advertisements or sponsored posts didn't continually make it to the website. Again, this is not a new problem, and where the ads are concerned, it's a problem that Facebook could easily fix if it actually wanted to.

Perhaps this could be a good starting point for the leading browsers to implement a 'fake news' check, much like how we're warned if we wind up on a site hosting malware. It wouldn't be an easy function to implement, but if done properly, it could eradicate these sites from existing in the first place.