Items tagged with fake news
How far would you go to combat fake news? Microsoft has partnered with third-party startup NewsGuard to warn Edge mobile users about unreliable sites. However, one news site is not particularly pleased with their evaluation from NewsGuard. Mail Online has accused NewsGuard of publishing a “egregiously erroneous classification”. NewsGuard has given Mail Online a one out of five on the credibility scale. Their mobile warning states, “Proceed with caution: this website generally fails to maintain basic standards of accuracy and accountability.” They also note that Mail Online have lost a number of legal cases, have attempted to damage reputations, and are not respectful of...
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Over the weekend we talked about the Facebook plan to survey its users to find out what news outlets are the most reliable, so that it can show users more news from those "trustworthy" sources. Anyone with visions of an in-depth survey that really got to the core of trust issues with news sources will likely be disappointed in the Facebook survey. There are only two questions, and BuzzFeed was able to obtain a copy of the survey: Do you recognize the following websites Yes No How much do you trust each of these domains? Entirely A lot Somewhat Barely Not at all A Facebook spokesperson has confirmed that this is, in fact, the survey the social network will be using. Facebook prepared the survey...
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Have you read about the morgue employee who fell asleep on the job and was accidentally cremated? Or what about Denzel Washington referring to former President Barack Obama as the "criminal-in-chief?" These things did not happen, nor did an NFL team declare bankruptcy over player's taking a knee in protest. These are examples of what we now refer to as fake news, and it is an ongoing problem for Facebook. In an effort to promote factual stories over fictional ones, Facebook announced a couple of changes. The first and perhaps biggest one is that Facebook is moving away from the use of Disputed Flags to report fake news stories, and will instead push links to related articles to give news items...
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Facebook is preparing for election season in the United Kingdom. The social media giant claims to have detected and deleted tens of thousands of “fake news” accounts. Facebook also plans to run advertisements in British newspapers about how to spot fake news sites. Simon Milner, Facebook’s director of policy in the United Kingdom, remarked, “People want to see accurate information on Facebook and so do we. That is why we are doing everything we can to tackle the problem of false news. We have developed new ways to identify and remove fake accounts that might be spreading false news so that we get to the root of the problem.” Image from: Flickr, secretlondon123Facebook has introduced new technology...
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One of the biggest problems on the web is the proliferation of fake news. Online services and Internet users alike face the same challenge—trying to discern between what is a legitimate news story and one that is outright false (or a satire). It is not always easy. According to Google, thousands of new articles are published online every minute. To help distinguish fact from fiction, Google is expanding the availability of its Fact Checking tool to search. Google first introduced its Fact Check tool last October ahead of election day. What it did was allow publishers to show a "Fact Check" tag in Google News for news stories that have been vetted. Readers could be assured that any story accompanied...
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It appears that Facebook has a new challenger to the throne when it comes to being the king of fake news. Google has been accused of spreading fake news, particularly through its “featured snippets” feature. If you have ever verbally asked Google a question through your smartphone or Google Home, you likely received a snippet as your response. The search engine pulls short answers from popular websites. Google occasionally pulls information from websites spreading falsehoods or propaganda, and reads the misleading information without any contextual clues. Users are not, however, completely in the dark. Google does state where it has received the scraped information, however, the nature of application...
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One of the biggest problems plaguing Facebook is the proliferation of fake news. While some headlines are obviously fictitious, that is not always the case, and it's an issue for a site that draws in billions of eyeballs everyday. In an effort to combat the problem head on and stop the spread of fake news articles, Facebook is rolling out a new flagging system whereby hoax articles can be tagged as "disputed" in the U.S. This does not mean that fake news items will disappear from your News Feed. Instead, stories that are tagged as fake news will be accompanied by a warning label underneath indicating that it's been "Disputed," along with listing the fact-checkers that deemed the story as fake....
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Are you looking for new reading material to keep you busy this weekend? If so, you might consider a 5,700-word manifesto written by Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. It's titled "Building Global Community" and it covers a range of topics on what is needed to build a better, more supportive and civically-engaged community. Though it's a relatively long read (compared to most of Zuckerberg's posts), it's actually shorter than an earlier version that appeared online. The earlier version included Zuckerberg's belief that artificial intelligence could eventually be used to monitor private messages by terrorists who are planning an attack. That bit was ultimately redacted, though the final...
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The term "fake news" has been floating around a lot over the past year, largely fueled by events surrounding the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election. Following Donald Trump's November victory, the world at large began to wonder if heavily biased or outright made-up new stories were causing real ill effects in the general populous. Even entire companies have been mulling the theory, including Facebook, which has been actively battling the issue in France, where a springtime election is fast approaching. The latest person to chime in on the issue is none other than Apple CEO Tim Cook. He goes so far as to say that fake news is "killing people's minds", which isn't hard notion to sympathize with. Some...
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The battle against fake news is being waged not only in North America, but on the European front as well. Google, Facebook, and a group of French news media outlets recently launched initiative “Cross Check” to squash fake news in France. The program is in response to the upcoming presidential election in France. How will this program work? Readers will be able to upload and report news they believe to be false. The reported links are gathered in a portal that Google and Facebook -- as well as Le Monde, Agence France-Presse (AFP), BFM TV, France Télévisions, France Media Monde , L'Express, Libération, and 20 Minutes -- will be able to access and review. If two or more media partners are...
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Facebook has been on a fake news hunt for the past few months. Its latest algorithm is intended to not only prevent fake news, but improve the overall Trending experience. The improvements are largely based on user feedback. The biggest and most requested change is that Facebook will now display a headline from a publisher’s article about a particular topic. How will the publishers be chosen? The headlines will be selected based on engagement around the actual article or publisher, and whether or not others are linking to the publisher’s article. After clicking on the topic, users will be taken to a personalized results page that will have additional sources. Facebook is also altering how topics...
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This past November, Mark Zuckerberg stated that Facebook would be working with journalists in order to improve its news content. The social media site has finally revealed exactly how it plans to work with journalists. Facebook has introduced the “Facebook Journalism Project”, which is intended to strengthen its ties with the news industry. The Facebook Journalism Project is comprised of three steps. First, Facebook plans to collaborate more on news products and with news organizations. It would like to evolve its current storytelling formats to suit the needs of news partners. Facebook is endeavoring to collaborate with local news sources and emerging business models. It also plan to launch...
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Facebook, the largest social network on the planet, has been criticized for not doing a better job at thwarting fake news. That criticism is unlikely to subside Facebook's Safety Check feature altered users in Bangkok to an "explosion" in the Thai capital that turned out to be nothing more than fireworks. However, the spread of fake news and bad information led Facebook astray on this one.A protestor on Tuesday threw firecrackers at a government building in Bangkok. The incident triggered Facebook's Safety Check feature at around 9:00 PM local time, which in turn created a page titled "The Explosion in Bangkok, Thailand." People in the area started marking themselves as safe so that friends and...
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People have been holding Facebook's feet to the fire over what is perceived as a fake news problem, which is a pretty big deal when you consider the number of eyeballs the world's largest social playground attracts on a daily basis. However, Facebook is not alone in this regard. It is being reported that Reddit, "the front page of the Internet," can be manipulated with fake news with the collective effort of just a few people and less than $200. Reddit is the 24th most popular website in the world and ranks 7th in the United States. It uses a system of upvotes and downvotes to regulate content and fend off erosion from the inside—posts that are deemed newsworthy, authentic, or otherwise worth...
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Facebook has a fake news problem, and it knows it. The social network giant was already under fire for hoax stories popping into its trending feed following its decision to fire all of its human curators in favor of AI algorithms. Things came to a head following last month’s U.S. presidential election and the role that fake news stories could have possibly had in swaying voters or further emboldening their positions. While Mark Zuckerberg at the time dismissed any notion that Facebook played an outsized role in determining the outcome of the election, the company is now making a concerted effort to combat fake news. “We believe in giving people a voice and that we cannot become arbiters of truth...
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The spread of misinformation and fake news via the internet is running rampant. As both a news writer and teaching assistant/college professor, I am in the unique position of not only battling misinformation online, but also in a university classroom. A Stanford University study recently discovered that many preteens and teenagers are unable to detect fake news, despite having tools at their disposal to to determine the validity of content. These future voters and leaders were unable to tell whether or not the articles they read were legitimate, accurate, or unbiased. Social media does not appear to be helping the issue. Facebook, as well as many other sites, have been accused of interfering...
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We tend to credit late-millennials and Generation Z, or preteens and teens, with an almost innate ability to understand the latest in available technology, and the implications of relying on it. A Stanford University study of 7,804 students from middle school through college, however, suggests that this age group has a difficult time detecting fake or sponsored news and articles. Stanford discovered that most students judged an article not by its sources, but on its length and whether or not a large picture was attached. According to Stanford, “More than two out of three middle-schoolers couldn’t see any valid reason to mistrust a post written by a bank executive arguing that young adults need...
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Major entities are taking steps to crack down on the proliferation of fake news, and you can count Google among them. The sultan of search is putting together a new policy that would prevent websites from misrepresenting content on its AdSense advertising network, a move that won't totally get rid of fake news but will make it tougher for people to profit from it. "Moving forward, we will restrict ad serving on pages that misrepresent, misstate, or conceal information about the publisher, the publisher's content, or the primary purpose of the web property," Google said in a statement. By using AdSense, advertisers can place text ads on millions of websites that are part of Google's network. The...
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