Ever since the conclusion of the 2016 U.S. Presidential Elections, Facebook has been roundly criticized by various source for managing to influence the election result via its News Feed. More specifically, many claims that Facebook’s hands-off approach to fake news has directly affected the outcome of the election. The following weeks weren’t any better for Facebook as sources also report that Facebook had been working on a method to stop fake news, but decided not to implement it due to various reasons.
Over the weekend, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has since explained the company’s decision to not implement the system that would halt the proliferation of fake news on the service’s News Feed as “technically and philosophically complex.” Nevertheless, Zuckerberg has outlined what Facebook intends to do with fake news feed from this point forward.
Firstly, the company aims to implement stronger detection systems that can detect websites that people are likely to flag as false before they do it themselves. Facebook will also be looking at implementing a new reporting system, allowing the people to report misinformation faster. Additionally, the company intends to rope in third party fact checking organizations to help them check the news stories published on the News Feed. All new stories that are reported false by either the public or these third party fact checking organizations will be labelled, warning everyone else that the story has been flagged false.
Facebook will also be looking into disrupting the economics of fake news, causing websites who regularly host fake news to lose a source of their revenue stream. In fact, Facebook has already taken the first steps in doing so as the company has recently updated its ad policy that forbids websites who host fake news from advertising on its site.
While Facebook’s decision to finally take a proactive stance against fake news is a good thing, only time will tell if it would be effective in combating fake news, considering the echo chambers that form around various Facebook communities.
Source: Facebook