Facebook partners with fact-checkers to battle fake news
Caveats will accompany faux reports, once they’ve been flagged. A top exec at the social network says, ‘We’re excited about this progress, but we know there’s more to be done.’
Facebook is cracking down on false articles shared on its platform.
On Thursday, the social media site announced new features to fight the spread of fake news. The rollout follows Facebook’s attempt over the past month to respond to backlash that it didn’t do enough to quash the spread of false articles in the run-up to the 2016 elections.
Adam Mosseri, vice president of Facebook’s news feed, wrote in a company blog post:
We believe in giving people a voice and that we cannot become arbiters of truth ourselves, so we’re approaching this problem carefully. We’ve focused our efforts on the worst of the worst, on the clear hoaxes spread by spammers for their own gain, and on engaging both our community and third party organizations.
The platform’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, announced the news on his Facebook page and said it has “a responsibility to make sure Facebook has the greatest positive impact on the world.”
Facebook is tacking the issue with four new features:
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