It never fails:  You check your social media account for baby pictures, puppy videos, and jokes.  But then that friend you just knew you shouldn't be on your list but you had to be polite posts some nonsense about your favorite politician committing some unspeakable act that didn't actually happen.

If you're on Facebook, this has been happening a wee bit too often lately - and Mark Zuckerberg knows it.  The founder of the social network is chafing against accusations that Facebook might have helped fascist demagogue Donald Trump get elected president because it's such a choice platform for crazy uncles and that doofy guy who never moved out of your hometown to share fake news.

Zuckerberg says 99 percent of what's shared online is authentic.  "Only a very small amount is fake news and hoaxes.  The hoaxes that do exist are not limited to one partisan view, or even to politics," he said, insisting that it is unlikely that hoaxes "changed the outcome of the election in one direction or the other".

"That said, we don't want any hoaxes on Facebook.  Our goal is to show people the content they will find most meaningful, and people want accurate news," Zuckerberg said.  "We have already launched work enabling our community to flag hoaxes and fake news, and there is more we can do here. We have made progress, and we will continue to work on this to improve further."

Just like the expression, "a lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth gets its boots on," there is data that crap news floods social media at a greater rate than the the follow-ups that debunk the initial claims - no matter how hard Snopes tries. Zuckerberg provided no specifics about how Facebook's News Feed might be changed to filter out the garbage, and he warned that "this work often takes longer than we'd like".