RALEIGH, N.C. _ In less than a month's time, a Facebook page peddling false and misleading news about North Carolina was able to garner more than 50,000 followers. But its days are over after Facebook took it down on Tuesday afternoon.
The page, which was called North Carolina Breaking News, described itself as "satire/parody," and it posted a mix of real and fake news, often manipulating stories from real publications.
"We've removed this Page after reviewing it and finding it violates our policies," a spokesperson for Facebook told The News & Observer on Tuesday.
The page was taken down after sharing scores of misleading stories, many of them promoting claims of crimes that happened in other states. Winston-Salem police first drew attention to the page, when it said it shared false stories about its officers doing good deeds.
Some of the page's posts were also written in Russian.
When contacted on Monday, administrators of the group told McClatchy News they were students at N.C. State University in Raleigh who are conducting a "social media project to see how fast news will spread." They did not provide their names. An N.C. State spokesperson told The N&O they had no knowledge of "any type of 'social media project'" the page administrator cited.
Additionally, administrators of the page told The N&O that "truth is not the goal" when it came to the stories they shared. Rather, "Getting Trump re-elected is the ultimate goal."
The Facebook page had shared fictional news as well as legitimate stories published by reputable networks and newspapers _ including McClatchy-owned publications such as The N&O and The Charlotte Observer. Often the posts added words and quotes to the story.
