Eric Sentell wrote a recent article entitled, “19 of 20 Christian Facebook Pages Are Fake”. Like so much on the internet these days, I took it to be exaggerated, at best. However, my curiosity was raised and decided to start backtracking the source. My first stop was Relevant Magazine, a somewhat obscure publication (the pot calling the kettle black) that posted two days earlier. Their source for the data was MIT Technology Review, written in mid-September, 2021. What started as a questionable post became more credible.
If one can trust MIT, during the last presidential campaign, 19 of the top 20 Christian Facebook pages were coordinated by foreign-based organizations operating as troll farms, located in Kosovo and Macedonia. Up to 95% of their posts followed (relatively) theologically sound doctrine including Devotions, Bible studies, Lifestyle, etc. posts. However, the remaining material was written in an attempt to breed discontent and divisiveness within our country. Below is the chart originating from MIT. Most, but not all, of these sites are no longer in existence. However, there is no question that in the age of social media, becoming a primary source (33%) of “news” for Americans, these false Christian sites have had an impact on our culture. In addition, MIT found similar fake Facebook profiles on 10 of the top 15 African American and 4 of the top 12 Native American Facebook pages.
Troll Farms are taking over Facebook, adding to their credibility gap.
Biblical Christian Response
Scripture speaks to us about being wise as serpents (Matt. 10:16) and to live at peace with our neighbors (Rom. 12:18). We are to love our enemies as ourselves (Mark 12:31). As we use social media for entertainment, we all need to have our filters on, being cautious about what we read and accept as fact.
