Facebook lays out gameplan for fighting spread of fake news

Facebook is adamantly pursuing ways of monitoring and controlling the proliferation of fake news while allowing users to also assist them in the hunt.  Image INQUIRER.net

Late last Friday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg took a strong stand against the proliferation of fake news on social media and laid out the plans that Facebook Inc. has come up with.

First and foremost, Zuckerberg wrote in a post, “We take misinformation seriously. We know people want accurate information,” The Wall Street Journal reported.

With this ideal in mind, Facebook has begun looking into adding labels to stories to have them tagged as “false.” They have also started building more tools for classifying fake news as well as working with third-party fact-checking groups.

The company also announced, following Google’s own announcement, that they will be barring fake news sites from utilizing their ad-selling tools, thereby cutting their main source of income.

However, Zuckerberg reiterated that Facebook has no wish to become an arbiter of truth. He wrote, “We believe in giving people a voice, which means erring on the side of letting people share what they want whenever possible.”  Alfred Bayle