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Facebook and Google struggle to squelch 'crisis actor' posts

Thousands of posts and videos had popped up on the sites, falsely claiming that survivors of the Florida shooting were paid actors

On social media, lax enforcement lets impostor accounts thrive
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Facebook requires proof of identity to shut down an impostor account but none to set one up

Jack Nicas & Sheera Frenkel | NYT San Francisco
On Wednesday, one week after the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, Facebook and YouTube vowed to crack down on the trolls.

Thousands of posts and videos had popped up on the sites, falsely claiming that survivors of the shooting were paid actors or part of various conspiracy theories. Facebook called the posts “abhorrent”. YouTube, which is owned by Google, said it needed to do better. Both promised to remove the content.

The companies have since aggressively pulled down many posts and videos and reduced the visibility of others. Yet on Friday, spot searches of the sites revealed that the noxious content was