Facebook's chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has announced plans to stop fake news from spreading on the social networking site, after initially dismissing the problem as a crazy idea. In a Facebook post over the weekend, Zuckerberg outlined specific steps to address the issue.
According to Zuckerberg's lengthy post, the measures include better technical systems to detect false information, making it easier for Facebook users to report fake news, getting help from third-party fact-checkers, showing warnings on stories flagged by fact-checking groups, removing fake news sites from its ad program, and working with journalists.
Zuckerberg, however, also said Facebook does not want to discourage its users from sharing opinions and mistakenly ban accurate content. He added that the social networking site does not intend to become an arbiter of truth.
Facebook came under fire for supposedly allowing fake news to spread, especially after the election of Donald Trump as U.S. President, which many critics had attributed to false information circulating widely on the site. For instance, a story from a fake news site called the Denver Guardian stated that an FBI agent suspected of leaking Hillary Clinton's e-mails was found dead.
The story, which was shared on Facebook more than half a million times, suggested that Clinton was behind the imaginary murder, according to TechCrunch. It ran just days before the Nov. 8 U.S. Presidential Elections and was believed to have influenced some voters. Another fake news story that spread on Facebook ahead of the polls was that Pope Francis endorsed Trump for the presidency.
Facebook's trouble with fake news started when it fired a team of human editors who vetted trending topics and replaced them with algorithms. The system has since begun promoting content from sites set up to come up with incendiary stories for profit.
Zuckerberg had long insisted that Facebook is a technology firm and not a media company, and that 99 percent of content posted there is genuine, Reuters reported. But former Facebook Product Manager Antonio Garcia-Marquez said that the social networking giant must own up to the fact that it is a media company.
Garcia-Marquez told TechCrunch that Facebook has the responsibility to provide legitimate information. He said Zuckerberg is the "front page editor" of newspapers in the world, a role he now plays, whether he likes it or not.
