This is the 4th in a series of articles we’re doing featuring misinformation found on Facebook as sponsored content. Not just posts by your garden variety loon, but stuff that Facebook allows people to increase the reach of using advertisement. These ads were collected on a fake Facebook account I created that follows every conspiracy theory page I can possibly find and from a couple great folks who submitted their own screen shots. Collected from November 20th 2020 through January 23rd 2021
Here’s the 1st article
Here’s the 2nd article
Here’s the 3rd article
if the images appear too small to read on your device, just click/tap them to enlarge
The cult of Scientology runs a lot of ads on Facebook. These are ads for misinformation about prescription drugs, mental health, and their “drug treatment” program.
Just garden variety anti-vaccine propaganda, which Facebook has said over and over and over again that they were going to get rid of on their website. No sense leaving money on the table though, right Zuck?
There is a long standing bit of medical misinformation that says “cancer cannot survive in an alkaline environment”. Obviously this isn’t true, and even if it were, no matter what you eat or drink, your body regulates your PH.
A variety of anti-mask propaganda, put in your feed whether you want it or not, because Facebook decided that this is a totally cool and chill thing to have ads for.
The virus isn’t the virus at all, y’all. It’s whatever or whoever you dislike. Dumb sheeple.
A collection of other random Covid-19 misinformation that doesn’t fit neatly into a specific category.
Known con artist and purveyor of all types of misinformation, Dane Wigington, is still allowed to run ads on Facebook. The last one here is especially fucked up if anyone knows the story of Michael Murphy.
Misinformation about 5G, and of course some scam products to protect you from the imaginary dangers of the deadly 5G radiation. This has been a fairly common theme in this series.
No clue how it is that Gaia is allowed to run ads. And for content featuring David Icke, who was kicked off of Facebook quite some time ago? Tsk Tsk.
Fight the new world order with… The Golden Dawn?
Benzo enthusiast and purveyor of misinformation about all manner of things, Jordy Pete, trying to get you to pay him for some kinda nonsense online course.
Kickin it old school with some 9/11 truth nonsense. FREQUENCY WARS!
But do not worry, do not fear. Facebook has seen fit to kick me off of their website on my account that has my real name attached to it and has been ID verified. I am not a conspiracy theorist, but I feel like it may have something to do with having gone on the record in this article on 538. After all, the article dropped the morning of January 22nd 2021, and I was banned from Facebook shortly thereafter. I imagine the “reason” was that I admitted to using fake Facebook accounts to monitor misinformation on their platform. But it’s not like I am the only person who uses sock accounts on social media for what is more or less a journalistic endeavor. In fact I don’t have to imagine it, I know for a fact that most people who cover extremism in some form have to use sock accounts for reasons ranging from personal privacy to simply not wanting one’s personal feed to be polluted with the kind of fucking garbage I have outlined in this series of magazine posts.
As long as email addresses and Facebook accounts are free, I will always be on that website. It’s just kind of petty, in my never humble opinion, to nuke the account of a tiny content creator for talking openly with a major publication about the battle against misinformation and extremism on the Facebook website.
I am still collecting screen shots and you can expect more of these articles periodically, hopefully monthly. As the election nears, I fear that the number ads containing misinformation on the Facebook platform will increase dramatically, especially ads that misinform about the current global pandemic. If you see these kinds of ads and want to help me with this project, please feel free to email them to echo@echoplexmedia.com or drop them in our Discord. If you’d like credit, just mention that you want your name or the name of your organization to be noted in the article and we’ll put it right under the picture so everyone knows you’re the lucky person who had your feed polluted.
