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Facebook has detailed its plan to deal with fake news appearing on the platform. It involves labeling false information with a link to a fact-checking site, as well as warning users when they attempt to repost these flagged items and giving them a worse position in the news feed:
Facebook has struggled for months over whether it should crack down on false news stories and hoaxes that are being spread on its site. Now, it has finally come to a decision. The social network is going to partner with the Poynter International Fact-Checking Network, which includes groups such as Snopes and the Associated Press, to evaluate articles flagged by Facebook users. If those articles do not pass the smell test for the fact-checkers, Facebook will label that evaluation whenever they are posted or shared, along with a link to the organization that debunked the story. Many of the organizations said that they're not getting paid for this.
"We have a responsibility to reduce the spread of fake news on our platform," Adam Mosseri, Facebook vice president of product development, told The Washington Post. Mosseri said the social network still wants to be a place where people with all kinds of opinions can express themselves but has no interest in being the arbiter of what's true and what's not for its 1 billion users.
The new system will work like this: If a story on Facebook is patently false — saying that a celebrity is dead when they are still alive, for example — then users will see a notice that the story has been disputed or debunked. People who try to share stories that have been found false will also see an alert before they post. Flagged stories will appear lower in the news feed than unflagged stories. Users will also be able to report potentially false stories to Facebook or send messages directly to the person posting a questionable article.
The Pew Research Center also released a survey about fake news, finding that a majority of Americans believe that fake news has caused confusion about the basic facts of current events.
(Score: 3, Informative) by SomeGuy on Monday December 19 2016, @12:54AM
I'm not sure why this was modded flamebait, it is a serious issue. Modern large-media news sources may be able to claim that the words they say are factually true, but the pictures they paint with those words are usually so slanted, out of context, sensationalized, and incomplete, they often might as well be "fake".
So where does one draw the line?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by BK on Monday December 19 2016, @01:40AM
Right there with that mindset.
Every story that does not include a full and utterly unbiased history of the world including the full and complete history of every person (including pets if you think they're people too) to have ever lived, even those who lived before recorded history, even those that a writer could not POSSIBLY be aware of, is by DEFINITION incomplete and out of context and sensationalized and therefore slanted. At the point you mark a particular news outlet because of the pictures they paint with true stories and news, you've crossed that line. Every news source that I'm aware of paints a picture when they decide, based on their own worldview, what is newsworthy.
If we're going to judge news by whether we like the picture it paints, we might as well ban all 'news' and be done with it. Your comment is a reduction to absurdity and you know it or should.
Name them all, or at least name peer groups, as anything else reeks of intentional bias or blatant trolling (not flamebait though).
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @03:35AM
Surely, you must recognize that there are sins of commission as well as sins of omission? Suppose, for example, that you hear on the news that there has been a plane crash; for weeks, your favourite news outlet reports this as an unfortunate plane crash. Now suppose, by chance, you hear from another news outlet that there is some evidence the plane was brought down by a bomb planted by terrorists. You seriously wouldn't think that your favourite news source hadn't misled you by slanted reporting?
Oh, Bullshit! News stories do not have to give a recap of the entirety of human history, just enough of the prior history of this particular story to give it proper context. And most proper news outlets will give you that context in their reporting; you will often recognize this as a two to three sentence summary of the prior reporting. Hint: you may find yourself quickly skimming over that context-giving summary as you think to yourself "yeah, I know that already".
Yeah, that's called editorial discretion. News outlets do not have the luxury of reporting everything; they have to make decisions about what will make the cut given finite time and resources. I don't see any way around that other than to get your news from a variety of sources. But that is a somewhat different issue from attempting to slant viewer (reader) opinion by leaving salient facts out of their news coverage. Those with clues should (hopefully) be able to discern the difference.
It's not a question of whether we like the picture it paints but, rather whether the picture is incomplete to the point of slanting the story in a not so subtle attempt to lead their readers to what they see as the "proper" conclusion.
Right back at ya, BK. Your comment is a reduction to absurdity and you know it or should.
(Score: 2) by BK on Monday December 19 2016, @12:29PM
So it's a question of the picture it paints and whether it is acceptable.
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @06:08PM
FTFY