Tech

Facebook To Start Fact Checking Political Photos And Videos Due To Outcry Over Fake News

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Eric Lieberman Managing Editor
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Facebook announced Thursday that it will start fact checking politically focused photos and advertisements, along with articles.

The tech giant appears to be reeling from severe public backlash over manipulation of its platform.

Through a partnership with third-party fact-checking organizations, the company will “use signals, including feedback from people on Facebook, to predict potentially false stories for fact-checkers to review,” according to a blog post written by several executives.

“When fact-checkers rate a story as false, we significantly reduce its distribution in News Feed — dropping future views on average by more than 80%,” wrote Tessa Lyons, Facebook’s product manager.

Facebook will notify people if they shared a story in question in the past, or if they are about to.

Articles, or links, have already been a part of its collective efforts, but now Facebook is “expanding beyond links to photos and videos” by employing The Associated Press for the U.S. and several other agencies, like Agence France-Presse, for international fact-checking efforts.

“We know we can’t go it alone,” Lyons wrote. “So we’re doubling down on our partnerships with academics, technology companies and other partners.”

The effort is likely in response to a growing concern that the social media company doesn’t do enough to squash misleading or fraudulent news. Facebook has seemingly been working to rectify deep-seated grievances from large portions of the public for some time. However, recent revelations have led to anger, and even calls for government oversight. (RELATED: There’s A Newfound Hatred Of Silicon Valley)

Facebook, for example, announced several changes to its business structure Wednesday, and how it deals with third-party data brokers — a possible attempt to stay ahead of lawmakers looking to delve deeply into the regulatory possibilities.

How does Facebook and its outside associates determine what is objectively fake, especially when even the most seemingly scientific processes are liable to subjectivity?

Alex Stamos, the chief security officer who may be experiencing a falling out with Facebook, conceded that “‘fake news’ is used to describe a lot of different types of activities.” He enumerates what they are focused on: “fake identities,” “fake audiences,” “false facts,” and “false narratives.” He provided brief explanations for what that means, but it still isn’t clear what the exact criteria is, and how they will decide implementation of its rules.

Google launched a fact check project of their own towards the end of 2017, but eventually suspended it in January after an investigation from The Daily Caller News Foundation proved that the algorithms used were flawed. (RELATED: Are Faulty Algorithms, Not Liberal Bias, To Blame For Google’s Fact-Checking Mess?)

Also WATCH: Is Google Targeting Conservative News Websites?

How Facebook’s content oversight will work out remains to be seen. Some of the company’s similar efforts in the past were ditched due to unintended consequences and features having the opposite effect of what was wanted.

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