Facebook steps up 'false news' crackdown with tips for spotting and reporting bogus storie...
This week, users on Facebook began receiving a public service announcement from the social networking site regarding what it has branded as "false news," offering tips on how to spot a fake story.
Notably, Facebook has chosen to refer to the trend as "false news," rather than "fake news," in an attempt to avoid the rhetoric --and accompanying political minefield --that now surrounds the latter term.
In announcing its initiative, Facebook has dubbed it "a new educational tool against information." Adam Mosseri, vice president of News Feed at Facebook, said the company's goal is for people to see accurate, truthful information when using the service.
"False news and hoaxes are harmful to our community and make the world less informed," Mosseri wrote. "All of us have a responsibility to curb the spread of false news."
As part of its efforts, Facebook has focused on disrupting economic incentives for "false news," building new products to stop the spread, and helping people make informed decisions.
To aid the last two goals, the company added a new page to its help section called "Tips to Spot False News," which includes a top 10 list of things users can look out for. The page also gives detailed instructions on how to report a bogus story shared in a Facebook News Feed.
The new series of tips are being promoted on the Facebook News Feed on both desktop and mobile in 14 countries.
Once a news story is reported as false, it may be reviewed by independent third-party fact checkers. If those fact checkers determine the story is false, the story will be marked as "disputed."
Disputed stories are accompanied by a warning presented to users before they can share it, intended to discourage them from posting it to their feed.
Facebook's efforts are done in partnership with The News Literacy Project, Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, and the News Literacy Lessons for Digital Citizens.
Whether branded as "fake" or "false," Apple has also signaled it is working to curb the spread of factually inaccurate news stories. The company's internet service chief Eddy Cue indicated in February that Apple is working on backend solutions to stop misleading and dangerous content via its own News app for iOS.
Since last year's U.S. presidential election, "fake news" has morphed from a disinformation campaign to a major journalist problems. Entire websites are now devoted to churning out bogus stories that reinforce previously-held beliefs on hot-button political issues such as immigration, crime and the economy.
Such stories can go viral, either being spread through Facebook or Twitter or sent directly via Apple's own iMessages. Sometimes these stories gain enough traction to make it into legitimate news cycles, duping mainstream journalists and major news outlets.
"We're very concerned about all of the news items and the clickbait from that standpoint, and that driving a lot of the news coverage," Cue said. "We're trying to do some things in Apple News, we're learning from that and we need to share that together as an industry and improve it."
Notably, Facebook has chosen to refer to the trend as "false news," rather than "fake news," in an attempt to avoid the rhetoric --and accompanying political minefield --that now surrounds the latter term.
In announcing its initiative, Facebook has dubbed it "a new educational tool against information." Adam Mosseri, vice president of News Feed at Facebook, said the company's goal is for people to see accurate, truthful information when using the service.
"False news and hoaxes are harmful to our community and make the world less informed," Mosseri wrote. "All of us have a responsibility to curb the spread of false news."
"All of us have a responsibility to curb the spread of false news."
As part of its efforts, Facebook has focused on disrupting economic incentives for "false news," building new products to stop the spread, and helping people make informed decisions.
To aid the last two goals, the company added a new page to its help section called "Tips to Spot False News," which includes a top 10 list of things users can look out for. The page also gives detailed instructions on how to report a bogus story shared in a Facebook News Feed.
The new series of tips are being promoted on the Facebook News Feed on both desktop and mobile in 14 countries.
Once a news story is reported as false, it may be reviewed by independent third-party fact checkers. If those fact checkers determine the story is false, the story will be marked as "disputed."
Disputed stories are accompanied by a warning presented to users before they can share it, intended to discourage them from posting it to their feed.
Facebook's efforts are done in partnership with The News Literacy Project, Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, and the News Literacy Lessons for Digital Citizens.
Whether branded as "fake" or "false," Apple has also signaled it is working to curb the spread of factually inaccurate news stories. The company's internet service chief Eddy Cue indicated in February that Apple is working on backend solutions to stop misleading and dangerous content via its own News app for iOS.
Since last year's U.S. presidential election, "fake news" has morphed from a disinformation campaign to a major journalist problems. Entire websites are now devoted to churning out bogus stories that reinforce previously-held beliefs on hot-button political issues such as immigration, crime and the economy.
Such stories can go viral, either being spread through Facebook or Twitter or sent directly via Apple's own iMessages. Sometimes these stories gain enough traction to make it into legitimate news cycles, duping mainstream journalists and major news outlets.
"We're very concerned about all of the news items and the clickbait from that standpoint, and that driving a lot of the news coverage," Cue said. "We're trying to do some things in Apple News, we're learning from that and we need to share that together as an industry and improve it."
Comments
Putting up with silly, offensive and even lies is an vital part of a true freedom of speech. Yes, Facebook is a private entity and the Bill of Rights does not apply to them so they can censor in any way they want, and yes there are always limits to the First Amendment protections, libel/slander laws, etc, but because of the reach and expanse of Facebook , and the likelihood that this will be emulated elsewhere, this is an ominous development.
Even with the best of intentions, this is unworkable. Take the recent controversies over the alleged spying by the Obama administration on the Trump campaign team, and the alleged involvement of the Russians with Trump staff. When someone posts a story, comment, etc., that "Obama spied on Trump" or "The Russians teamed up with Trump staffer" who is the oracle that gets to decide if either, neither or both or false/true? Now carry that out a thousand times every day with every story, report, etc.
Indeed, the beginning of a dark era if this isn't fought by civil libertarians left and right.
2) If you had a bare minimum of research you would see that Politifact used to have a "Mostly True" rating for Kerry's 2014 statement, "We struck a deal where we got 100 percent of the chemical weapons out," after citing a statement from director general of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, Ahmet Üzümcü, who stated, "The last of the remaining chemicals identified for removal from Syria were loaded this afternoon aboard the Danish ship Ark Futura." Despite those comments, Politifact still only gave it a "Mostly True" rating because there were still discrepancies between how many chemical weapons Syria claimed to have and how many outside observers claimed the country had. It was only 3 years later—which is why you bring it up now—that Politifact removed the statement and stated, "we don't know key details about the reported chemical attack in Syria on April 4, 2017, but it raises two clear possibilities: Either Syria never fully complied with its 2013 promise to reveal all of its chemical weapons; or it did, but then converted otherwise non-lethal chemicals to military uses. One way or another, subsequent events have proved Kerry wrong," Funny how you left out Politifact's statement.
3) Do you understand how facts work or are you purposely being obtuse to further a political agenda (which I hope you aren't since that's going to get this thread locked down). I'll make it simple by showing you in video in the form of a comedy gameshow…
Also, I have yet to see a single fake (factually false) news story. Not a single one. What I have seen is that all the news I get, from my facebook feed to mainstream media sources, is %95 biased.
Bias is the real enemy of the truth; not some silly fringe 'fake news' that is/was more than likely inconsequential.
The problem Facebook has is all news is fake, as soon as the report starts putting in their own opinions and make statement of fact with no supporting data, or quote so call anonymous source it is all fake. Unless the say a red car hit a blue on highway xyz, it become fake the moment that say one car was driving too fast, until the get the data from the accident reconstruction experts or the police report which clear says what happen, they turn real news into fake news. People need to start asking themselves when they see a report on the news, how do they know the facts the are claiming what is the actual source and are the showing the actual data or direct statement form the actual person involved.
If anyone ever listen to the Howard Stern show, there were listeners form his show who would call into TV news shows and act like some so call expert and make all kinds of statement about recent event the media was covering, the media reporters would eat this stuff up and repeat for days until they were told they were scammed.
Until the media and prove their sources and show the actual data, do not trust them and treat it all as fake and they are there for the entertainment factor.
search engines are fine until you realize google and others push you to information sources which google and other make the most ad money. Don't you think there is just a little bit of a conflict of interest. Is Google push you to what they know as being 100% true or pushing you to what they know to make them more money.
Plus any politic by definition is a lie, who side to you believe, it hard to fact check lies based on non data or made up data, unless you know the data to be 100% accurate you have to assume it is all bad.
2) So you don't use any search engine? You don't trust that when you look up "cute puppies playing" on YouTube that you won't find cute puppies playing?
3) What exactly is your recourse if you think that "(of an action) seeming sensible and judicious under the circumstances" is an inherent lie and that no results you get from a search engine can be trusted?
Remember folks like "Mr. Daisey" that made up all that shit about Apple and got exposed? Free speech, but with consequences.
If our government does it, I'd maybe be concerned. When shops like Facebook want to crack down on it, by all means do it. I'm fed up with it. Many are.
What is it true? When you have cube with 3 sides green and 3 red and two people ale looking from opposite sides, each see just one color. But they would be willing to start a war to push their true.
True is point of view.
How mass media could live in such new system when huge part of their reporting is just biased propaganda. It will be interesting to see how masses will react on this propaganda. It may be all flagged as fake news by people. And I hope so.
Syria can be good example. Nobody know anything but everybody is claiming its agenda. Kerry could be true. It is possible that all chemical weapons were removed from Syria but.... just from Assad controlled territory. You can hardly see any discussion in mass media talking about possibility of chemical weapons in hands of those Al-kaida jihadi "rebels". It would not fit into biased propaganda.There is so many interests from all superpowers and oil states in Syria that you can not believe nearby anything about it you read hear or see. It is good to watch local people reporting on twitter from all sides to get some conclusion.
It wasn't considered "fake" for some time because there was no evidence against it. Facebook attempting to cull stories cannot possibly result in anything other than agenda pushing.
Small changes would be to overlay a big red heading to highlight something
eg: June, 2012 (Overlaid when someone shares a sensational news article from 5 years ago)
or Satire (Overlaid for jokes that are too often believed)
Those are easy.
Then there's context (for news that ignore an important aspect - like an "association" that implies it represents the whole state, when it just had a cool name with 3 members!).
If we believe no news sources (or just ones that sound pretty good!) then society will suffer.