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Facebook is taking the fight against misinformation really seriously, as it has now resorted to a series of methods to combat it. Starting from academic help to measure the impact of fake news on the feed, Facebook moved printed campaigns informing users on the matter, as well as a short film about how to fight false news.
Researchers will investigate the impact of misinformation on Facebook
This year, the news that Russian hackers got involved in the US presidential election hit everyone hard. It turns out these hackers helped promote fake news on Facebook regarding the election. Soon after this went public, the platform decided to intervene. This way, they hired a team of researchers to analyze the impact of misinformation on the outcome of the election.
Now, Facebook seems to have gotten used to academic help, as it asked the same expert commission for a new mission. These researchers are going to target misinformation on the news feed and measure how widespread it is. They will develop a special website for that, and its launch should occur in two weeks’ time.
Soon, Facebook will decide what researchers should be part of the project. The matter is quite delicate, as they will gain access to user data. However, you shouldn’t worry about that. Your privacy is not in danger, as the researchers will be looking at something completely different.
People will find out more about fake news through films and posts
Facebook has other secret weapons against misinformation. It is going to inform users about fake news and how to spot them. For that, it will post some info that should appear at the top of the news feed page, but also a print campaign that should reach over 170 million people. Over the next few months, users will be able to read about digital misinformation in newspapers.
In the end, one last strategy against fake news is an 11-minute short film, Facing Facts. It presents several employee interviews where they talk about their strategies against misinformation. This way, they tell us how they want to keep the platform clean. If you want to see how the algorithms behind the news feed work, you can read more in the section called Inside Feed.
Image source: Pixabay
