By Pascal Oparada
In an effort to combat fake news, Social media giant, Facebook is partnering with Full Fact, a British independent fact-checking charity to fight misinformation in the UK.
Facebook users in the UK will be able to flag potentially misleading information. Then Full Fact’s fact-checkers will take over to crosscheck for accuracy rating, false or a mix of both.
“Full Fact will focus on reviewing and rating misinformation which carries the most potential for harming people’s safety or undermining democratic processes – such as dangerous cancer ‘cures’, false stories spreading after terror attacks or fake content about how to vote ahead of elections,” Facebook said in a press release.
Any content flagged as fake news would appear lower on Facebook’s News Feed and users will see if the contents they are sharing are fake news or not. Facebook will not stop users from sharing such contents.
According to Facebook, Full Fact will only review content that’s presented as fact-based reporting, while ignoring other types of content such as opinion or satire.
This comes after a Guardian report said Facebook’s fact-checking is in disarray because journalists have cut ties with the project.
The Guardian said journalists complained of abandonment after the programme was launched.
“They’ve essentially used us for crisis PR,” said Brooke Binkowski, former managing editor of Snopes, a fact-checking site that has partnered with Facebook for two years. “They’re not taking anything seriously. They are more interested in making themselves look good and passing the buck … They clearly don’t care.”
But Facebook replied saying, “Contrary to a claim in the story, we absolutely do not ask fact-checkers to prioritize debunking content about our advertisers.”
Crosscheck Nigeria, a coalition of major newsrooms, was launched on November to fight misinformation and disinformation online as the country holds an election this February.
Partnering with First Draft, also a UK based not for profit organisation and International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR), brought together journalists across media houses to debunk fake news in the country.
First Draft seeks to leverage on its success in Brazil where they launched Comprova and in France where they also launched CrossCheck France. It hopes to replicate the success in Nigeria.
The project has since gained traction. The project was able to debunk the story of a cloned President Muhammadu Buhari, among others.
Facebook remains the major platform where misinformation thrives.
