Facebook to crack down on fake news

Ever since social media gained mainstream popularity, fake news has become a part of everyday life.  After the initial stage of struggling to differentiate between fake and fact-based news, people have given in to the trend and are found to be blindly trusting and spreading fake news without even attempting a basic fact check. Facebook, which is seen as one of those platforms where fake news gains easy momentum, has decided to take a step in the right direction.

Facebook has decided to partner with fact checkers to make sure that fake news doesn’t get shared on their site and users’ newsfeed. On December 15, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg shared on his Facebook page, “This update is just one of many steps forward, and there will be more work beyond this.”

“Today we’re making it easier to report hoaxes,” he admitted through his post. As a solution to the problem, Mark pointed out that if a large number of people report a story, then it will be sent to third-party fact checking organisations.

If the fact checkers agree a story is a hoax, then users will see a flag on the story saying it has been disputed,    and that story may be less likely to show up in News Feed. Snopes, FactCheck.org, Politifact, ABC News, and Associated Press have been roped in as the fact-checkers. Facebook will now refer to fact-checking services that adhere to Poynter’s International Fact-Checking Network fact-checkers’ code of principles which works with news articles flagged by users and algorithms.

Although people will still be able to read and share the news, users will be aware of what the fact checkers have found out about it. When users began questioning Zuckerberg about how much the ‘fact-checkers can be trusted’ he responded by stating an example. “We’re focused on obvious hoaxes with headlines like ‘Michael Phelps just died of a heart attack’ designed to get people to click on the stories and see ads.”

Facebook will be adding more unbiased fact-checkers to their list as the project progresses.