Fears for UK boomer radicalisation on Facebook after Meta drops factcheckers
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/12/fears-for-uk-boomer-radicalisation-on-facebook-after-meta-drops-factcheckers
Posted by GeoWa
Fears for UK boomer radicalisation on Facebook after Meta drops factcheckers
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/12/fears-for-uk-boomer-radicalisation-on-facebook-after-meta-drops-factcheckers
Posted by GeoWa
34 Comments
If you don’t have the critical thinking skills to tell the difference then Facebook fact checkers are hardly going to help anyway.
>Fears for UK boomer radicalisation on Facebook
Whoever wrote this hasn’t glanced through the Daily Mail, The Express, The Times or the Daily Telegraph recently.
Fears? Facebook is already full of boomers getting mad at things people have made up to make them mad
Facebook fact checkers weren’t safeguarding truth or reason, they were safeguarding their own narrative. They had to go, it was just a different sort of radicalisation.
Don’t worry millennials and Gen Z are already being radicalized on Tik Tok…
* In the US.
the UK is still, for now, covered by EU legislation which legally requires them.
They’re mostly radicalised already. Complete detachment from reality more often than not in my experience.
I think they are too busy posting ads for missing cats from 6 countries over!
Facebook is irrelevant,you only need to take a walk outside and look at the state of the country to become radicalised.
theres tonnes of misinformation and disinformation on reddit, its easy to laugh at boomers whilst pretending to be somewhat more informed then them.
Meanwhile on Reddit a bunch of people spouting a load of idiotic age cohort nonsense and prejudice and thinking they’re enlightened…..
It already happened lol. My mum recently deleted her Facebook but some of the bigotry and downright hateful comments you saw on there are legitimately insane sometimes.
I worry about the Right going full Qanon unhinged.
“Winston Churchill is a time traveller about to return, save us from vaccines and windmills. Thatcher was friends with Jimmy Savile as white hat undercover. Gary Lineker has been executed by Military Tribunal. 9.00 GMT. Dua Lipa has been replaced by a clone.”
My mum, spent her entire life working in the NHS as a secretary for mostly indian or Asian consultants retired a few years ago. She since gets all her news and knowledge of none white folk from twitter and the daily mail. We’ve fallen out a few times now because of the absolute racist shite she comes out with, with only these 2 places as her source. It is absolutely a huge issue that these ideologies are allowed to spread while masquerading as news.
I let her know what a cunt she is whenever she comes out with it but not everyone has that feedback.
When i was growing up
Boomers 20 years ago: don’t believe everything you see on the internet.
Boomers 20 years later: look at this facebook post a pig gave birth to a human
This is definitely a case of worrying about the stable doors being open long after the horse has been deported. Boomers were already being radicalised by social media, and factcheckers weren’t stopping that from happening. Getting rid of factcheckers might make the problem marginally worse, perhaps, but I doubt it’ll have a meaningful impact.
Beyond that, just because Twitter’s implementation of “community notes” is a mixed bag that is open to abuse does not mean that Facebook will go down the same path. There’s nothing inherently wrong with the community notes model of moderation so long as it is framed and managed appropriately. That is ultimately where Twitter’s implementation falls down.
It’s the younger generations I fear for, look at just how many followed the likes of Andrew Tate.
The lack of self awareness of using divisive hate terms like “Boomer” and talking about radicalisation.
It’s the Guardian though, an organ that despises the provincial white working class so much it tacitly supports the mass rape and grooming of our children, so makes sense.
People that refer to “boomers” blissfully unaware that they’re already radicalised.
A lot of ‘fact-checking’ was nonsense though, and we know now was govt/FBI driven, let’s get some of them that actually do their job
They are already radicalised! They think milk has gone crazy and woke.
Thank goodness we have gen Z to counter, always the balanced voice of reason……
Oh my life, what a fucking headline
Fears of radicalisation because one side of the political isle no longer has full authoritarian like control over speech. Can they not hear themselves? I feel like I’m taking crazy pills.
This article is so fucking obtuse to how the dullards in our societal discord process information. No thought, just mouth open, eyes rolled back and staring up into the rainstorm.
While I don’t support Meta’s move here, I’m also not convinced fact checkers help when it comes to reducing radicalisation or just the spread of batshit insane conspiracy theories. If anything, the presence of fact checkers probably fuels the narrative that a sinister, shadowy, global elite is trying to control what you’re allowed to say and think. You know, to a COVID denier or anti-vaxxer “this post has been fact checked and found to be utter bollocks” is basically double confirmation that it’s right. These people never seem to think that if “they” really didn’t want you reading “the truth”, it wouldn’t be sitting there freely available for you to read in the first place.
But there are other areas where I think fact checkers serve a good purpose and are important, I think they’re especially important in reporting of political campaigning and the commentary made by political and public figures of interest.
Really telling that the generation who advised to not believe everything you real on the internet believes everything they read on the internet.
I think they fell for the “I’m immune to propaganda” thing, and assumed they’d be able to spot it
Many if not most so-called ‘Boomers’ are grown up, mature and thoughtful people, mildly patriotic but above all else, thoroughly sensible. They will not be negatively ‘influenced’ by racist, proto-nazis openly posting aggressive messages to foment violent disorder. It is fatuous, provocative and patronising to presume it will.
Too late for that. Boomers have been radicalised for years via the **n, Express, Mail, Telegraph. Social
Media was just another platform and not the cause here.
Boomers have enjoyed a unique position in time – they enjoyed the best employment, healthcare, jobs, salaries , pensions and housing. Whilst simultaneously never (in the main) living through or fighting in any major wars.
And yet, they have become the most entitled, selfish, ignorant generation that has ever lived.
It’s already happened.
Wondering when the lawsuits kick off so I can sue the government for turning my parents into hermit cultists who never leave the house because of “all the Muslims”.
I’ve seen no evidence of fact checking on meta services. Facebook and Instagram are the absolute worst places to get information about anything even remotely political
There’s no denying Facebook is radicalising boomers, but let’s not ignore the younger generations it’s happening with either. I see just as much hate on Facebook from gen X.
It’s already happening. My parents are retired and some of the things they share with me are insane. A lot of the things they are parroting are completely against the values they raised me with, it’s pretty scary.
I’ve dumped facebook. They could turn it off for all I care. And they should. We really don’t need the US exported BS. There are regs that keep their dodgy food out of this country. This is even more important.
Maybe the Tories will change their social media to ‘factcheck UK’ permanently and save us all from this stream of misinformation.