In wake of allegations that Facebook has been harbouring and displaying fake news to its users, co-founder of the company Mark Zuckerberg has announced some of the measures that will be taken to avoid this transmission of misinformation. Having initially relied on the Facebook community to help understand 'what is fake and what is not' and eventually penalising misinformation in the News Feed to prevent its spread, the company has now chosen to get in contact with 'respected fact-checking organisations' for third-party verification as well as develop technology capable of detecting false stories. Not only this, but the use of 'warning labels' on stories and just the general disruption of the economics of fake news in that people are profiting off of Facebook's ad system, is something that it is going to be focused on by the social network in particular to help prevent this fake news. All this comes after what has been an arguably rocky year for Facebook so far, with them firing their team of curators leading to its algorithm pushing false news and also the controversy regarding their deletion of the Vietnam war photo of Phan Thi Kim Phuc. The alarm regarding Facebook's fake news mainly got about after President Obama referred to it as 'a threat to democracy.'
- Zuckerberg claims 99% of Facebook posts “authentic,” denies fake news there influenced election
Having read about Zuckerberg rejecting the 'crazy idea' that Facebook's publication of fake news influenced the result of the election just last week, it didn't resonate with me that it would become an issue even talked about by the most powerful man in the world. Obama's comments on this issue shows the pure alarm that this misinformation is producing, however what a lot of people need to understand at least in my opinion is that this is a part of new and digital media, whether unsavoury or not. The lack of gatekeepers that exist online means that means that articles that aren't even true can end up circulating around in a way that can't be said for newspapers. It appears that people have got a lot of getting used to to do with this issue.
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