A news detector that was earlier claimed to be developed by Facebook has been declared fake along with the revelation about its original creator. BS Detector is not a product of Facebook but technologist Daniel Sieradski.
Why Facebook Blocked BS Detector
With the way the BS Detector plug-in appeared on the Facebook page, users believed it was a feature of the social media giant. But Facebook blocked the links to the plug-in on December 2 after it received reports of it claiming to be an FB feature.
The blocking of the BS Detector link came following user feedback when they noticed seeing content warnings linked to a fake news domain. The user would not realize that it was not Facebook but some third party until late. By blocking the link, the social media platform confirmed that is not related to the fake news website in any manner.
"This message contains content that has been blocked by our security systems," an error message appears as users click on the BS Detector link on Facebook. "If you think you're seeing this by mistake, please let us know."
What The BS Detector Original Creator Has to Say
Sieradski blamed a Tech Crunch article for hounding Facebook to block BS Detector link. He said that it was the article that claimed that the news plug-in was being presented as an FB feature. This was the reason, according to him, that made the social media site dismiss the plug-in and display an error message.
In a blog post published in mid-November, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said that the team's goal is to find "most meaningful" information for users. He stated that the FB team does not trust or rely on a third party for any information and, hence, BS Detector feature is put in question.
According to the BBC, BS Detector uses fake news sources as reference and is accessible via Chrome and Mozilla. The plug-in can also be added to these browsers and can be considered "a questionable source."
