Zuck Explains How Facebook Will Combat Fake News With Better Detection, Flagging And Warning Of Misinformation
Facebook has been under fire the last few months for spreading misinformation and "fake news." Some have even accused fake Facebook News Feed Stories of affecting the outcome of the 2016 American presidential election. Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg recently laid out how the company plans on combating the dissemination of fake news. He noted that he does not usually share information about this process, but all the recent hubbub has pressured him to offer a few a details.
Facebook’s Trending Stories team was accused this year for suppressing politically conservative news stories. The entire Trending Stories editorial staff was fired and replaced with an algorithm. The biased stories, however, were sometimes replaced by Facebook's algorithms with fake news stories that repeatedly cropped up in the Trending Stories section.
Zuckerberg remarked, “The problems here are complex, both technically and philosophically. We believe in giving people a voice, which means erring on the side of letting people share what they want whenever possible. We need to be careful not to discourage sharing of opinions or mistakenly restricting accurate content. We do not want to be arbiters of truth ourselves, but instead rely on our community and trusted third parties.”
Facebook has several ways they plan to prevent misinformation. They are improving their technical systems in order to detect what people will flag as false before they do it themselves. They are also learning from third parties to better their verification process and making the reporting process easier for users. Facebook plans to work with journalists in order to learn more about fact-checking and placing warning labels on stories that have been flagged as false. Facebook hopes to overall increase the quality of their articles and disrupt the fake news economy that exists today.
Zuckerberg concluded, “Some of these ideas will work well, and some will not. But I want you to know that we have always taken this seriously, we understand how important the issue is for our community and we are committed to getting this right.”
Facebook’s Trending Stories team was accused this year for suppressing politically conservative news stories. The entire Trending Stories editorial staff was fired and replaced with an algorithm. The biased stories, however, were sometimes replaced by Facebook's algorithms with fake news stories that repeatedly cropped up in the Trending Stories section.
Zuckerberg remarked, “The problems here are complex, both technically and philosophically. We believe in giving people a voice, which means erring on the side of letting people share what they want whenever possible. We need to be careful not to discourage sharing of opinions or mistakenly restricting accurate content. We do not want to be arbiters of truth ourselves, but instead rely on our community and trusted third parties.”
Facebook has several ways they plan to prevent misinformation. They are improving their technical systems in order to detect what people will flag as false before they do it themselves. They are also learning from third parties to better their verification process and making the reporting process easier for users. Facebook plans to work with journalists in order to learn more about fact-checking and placing warning labels on stories that have been flagged as false. Facebook hopes to overall increase the quality of their articles and disrupt the fake news economy that exists today.
Zuckerberg concluded, “Some of these ideas will work well, and some will not. But I want you to know that we have always taken this seriously, we understand how important the issue is for our community and we are committed to getting this right.”
