Facebook turns to literacy campaign to combat fake news

[Shawn Knight]

Fake news is arguably one of Facebook’s top concerns as of late. The social network has devoted a significant amount of time (and resources, no doubt) tackling the matter with varied degrees of success.

Its latest effort emerged on Thursday in the form of an educational campaign designed to provide tips on how to spot falsehoods.

Adam Mosseri, VP of the News Feed at Facebook, said they worked with a non-profit called First Draft which helps improve skills and standards in the reporting and sharing of information online to develop a tool that’ll assist people in spotting fake news.

For the next few days, the tool will reside at the top of the News Feed for people in 14 countries (he didn’t specify which countries specifically would be taking part in the literacy campaign). When clicked, users will be presented with information and tips on how to spot bogus content such as checking the URL of the site, watching for unusual formatting, investigating the source and searching for other reports on the topic.

These may seem like “common sense” tips but unfortunately, skepticism isn’t always a trait found on social media. Facebook and others often shoulder the blame for fake news but is that fair when people are gullible enough to believe some of the nonsense published online?

Tom Felle, a lecturer in digital journalism at City University, told the BBC that unless Facebook stops rewarding the architects of fake news with huge traffic, the problem will just get worse.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/68839-facebook-turns-literacy-campaign-combat-fake-news.html

 

[yRaz]

I hate this "combating fake news" stuff. It's censorship, plan and simple. It doesn't matter if it's fake or not, the very idea that someone gets to decide what facts are is just plan wrong. Who gets to decide that it's fake? What if bias, even on the side of an algorithm, accidentally censors real news? All of this while fake news has a chance to slip through anyway.

As far as the "rewarding sites with traffic" argument, these fake news are not funded by ads. They are usually funded by political groups and in extreme circumstances, entire governments.

But what I don't like here is the potential for abuse. What if a true story goes viral about facebook selling use data?(opps!)

 

[vhfan]

Zuckerberg has absolutely ZERO clue and facebook has more people jumping ship then ever before , problem with this ***** is he is a hard left wing nutjob .

His idea or real news is the definition and the standard of fake news , anybody who has an IQ exceeding that of a garden tomato knows anything reported by CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, NBC NYT, HUFFPOST and even FOX is 100% complete BS .

Wikileaks documents proved it and showed that every single one of these networks & newspapers is heavily tied to the democratic party .

You would have to be one of the dumbest people to ever walk planet earth to dispute this and wouldn't you know it , most libtards actually believe the media lol.

Nuff said

 

[Scorpionking20]

anybody who has an IQ exceeding that of a garden tomato knows anything reported by CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, NBC NYT, HUFFPOST and even FOX is 100% complete BS .

Get back in your basement and put your tinfoil hat on. They are coming for you!

 

[Reehahs]

One country's fake news is another country's truth.