Given that one-quarter of all time spent on the internet is reportedly spent on Facebook, the Silicon Valley social network received significant flak after the US elections for allegedly allowing ‘fake stories’ to dominate user feeds.
According to a company blog post, Facebook will take steps to combat viral misinformation and disinformation, including embedding a ‘fake news’ button on the top-right corner of articles that look suspicious, asking a consortium of journalists to fact-check stories that are reported to be fake by an undisclosed number of users, and marking stories determined to be false by journalists as "disputed by third-party fact-checkers."
Articles that journalists call bogus will get a "disputed" label on Facebook’s news feed. These articles will be funneled back into search algorithms to limit how much traction they are allowed to receive. The tech company is partnering with ABC News, Politifact, FactCheck and Snopes to scrutinize stories, according to Recode. The move will help Facebook brand itself as unbiased, when further accusations of biased news are brought against the company.
Perhaps, Facebook intentionally wants to avoid responsibility for censoring ‘fake news,’ since recently the company was accused of having ‘liberal bias.’ The social network’s employees in charge of the trending news section have routinely promoted pieces consistent with their political views, an ex-Facebook employee told Gizmodo. After the scandal became an international news, Facebook managers invited a group of two dozen prominent conservative journalists to meet with them. At the meeting the CEO Mark Zuckerberg promised to address the issue and make sure that all views get equal representation.
It’s still unclear if this time around Facebook will avoid accusations of bias. Therefore, the company underscores that this plan is a temporary one, and it may be changed depending on the outcome.
