The Biggest Technology Failures of 2016
From algorithms that spread fake news to glowing plants that don’t glow, here are our picks for the worst technologies of the year.
Facebook’s News Feed
“Pope Francis Shocks World, Endorses Donald Trump for President, Releases Statement.” That never happened. Yet this headline was among a tsunami of falsehoods spread on Facebook, the 1.7 billion-member social network. CEO Mark Zuckerberg denies Facebook is a media company or that it can influence global events like elections, an idea he called “pretty crazy” (even though Facebook also sells political ads). But the public sees it differently. President Obama called fake news an existential threat to our “democratic freedoms” and “prosperity.”
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