Unlike its usual policies, wherein Facebook largely allows users to express themselves and share whatever they like or to not play the role of ‘arbiters of truth’, the social media network has taken serious note of the advent of fake news and the role this has played in influencing public opinion, and at times even creating panic.
In the initial phase, Facebook has created a four-step mechanism to address hoaxes and fake news.
It will allow people to report a post on the basis of it being a fake news story adding this as a specific point to flag a post to its existing set of reasons.
Apart from providing more context that can help people decide for themselves what to trust and what to share Facebook has also started a program to work with third-party fact checking organizations that are signatories of Poynter’s International Fact Checking Code of Principles. It will still be possible to share these stories, but people will see a warning that the story has been disputed as they try and share. Once a story is flagged, it can’t be made into an ad and promoted, either.
Facebook will also factor in how much a story is shared or not shared after people have read it and will disrupt financial incentives for spammers. For instance, on the buying side Facebook has eliminated the ability to spoof domains, which will reduce the prevalence of sites that pretend to be real publications. And on the publisher side, it is analyzing publisher sites to detect where policy enforcement actions might be necessary.
“It’s important to us that the stories you see on Facebook are authentic and meaningful. We’re excited about this progress, but we know there’s more to be done. We’re going to keep working on this problem for as long as it takes to get it right,”quoted Adam Mosseri, VP, News Feed in a company post.
