John Oliver Crafts Perfect Meme For Aging Relatives Who Share BS On Social Media

John Oliver said the problem with misinformation and lies on social media goes far beyond what’s reported. As bad as it is in English, it’s often worse in other languages.

False and misleading posts that get slapped with a warning in English will often spread unchecked in posts aimed at immigrants’ diaspora communities, Oliver said. While 90 percent of Facebook’s monthly users are outside of the United States and Canada, the company last year devoted just 13 percent of its fact-checking time to content from outside the U.S.

“So it seems that Facebook’s adopted the same general attitude to misinformation that the Oscars took toward best pictures for the first 90 years of its existence,” Oliver said. “Basically, if it doesn’t happen in English, it doesn’t fundamentally matter.”

Oliver showed examples of how these false posts were influencing people around the world ― including immigrant communities within the U.S. ― on issues ranging from politics to the coronavirus. He also presented a way to combat those online lies with something that will look very familiar to those who are often the victims of them.

See his full segment below and download the meme-based messages on his new website, BetterMorningMessages.com.