Facebook rolls out new tool to help combat fake news.

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**Breotan**

'Disputed by multiple fact-checkers' is the new alert that Facebook is attaching to suspected "fake" news items. On the surface this seems like a good thing but some fact checkers are more reliable than others. Some fact checking articles are also very subjective so I'm not entirely sure how Facebook will decide which and what articles will get a warning and which will evade this tool by tweaking headlines or changing certain keywords in their article. It will be interesting to see.

What will be funny to see is all the Alex Jones types losing their freaking minds when everything they publish is flagged.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/disputed-by-multiple-fact-checkers-facebook-rolls-out-new-alert-to-combat-fake-news/ar-BByzQJy?li=AA4Zoy&ocid=spartanntp

'Disputed by multiple fact-checkers': Facebook rolls out new alert to combat fake news

© Facebook The warning message that appears when some Facebook users try to post a fake news article.

Facebook has started rolling out its third-party fact-checking tool in the fight against fake news, alerting users to “disputed content”.

The site announced in December it would be partnering with independent fact-checkers to crack down on the spread of misinformation on its platform.

The tool was first observed by Facebook users attempting to link to a story that falsely claimed hundreds of thousands of Irish people were brought to the US as slaves.

Titled “The Irish slave trade – the slaves that time forgot”, the story published by the Rhode Island entertainment blog Newport Buzz was widely shared on the platform in the lead-up to St Patrick’s Day on 17 March.

For some users, attempting to share the story prompts a red alert stating the article has been disputed by both Snopes.com and the Associated Press. Clicking on that warning produces a second pop-up with more information “About disputed content”.

“Sometimes people share fake news without knowing it. When independent fact-checkers dispute this content, you may be able to visit their websites to find out why,” it reads. “Only fact-checkers signed up to Poynter’s non-partisan code of principles are shown.”

The Poynter code promotes excellence in non-partisan and transparent fact-checking for journalism. The pop-up also links to Snopes.com, AP and Facebook’s official help page.

Choosing to ignore the warning and click “publish” prompts another pop-up, reiterating that its accuracy was “disputed”. Clicking “post anyway” publishes the link, but it appears in others’ timelines as “Disputed by Snopes.com and Associated Press”.

Attempts by the Guardian in San Francisco to publish the Newport Buzz story triggered the tool, but not in Sydney or London. It was also possible to flag it to Facebook as a “fake news story” through the usual reporting process.

It is not unusual for Facebook to trial new features on a small number of users before applying them across the board. Facebook declined to comment on the roll-out of the tool, but its help centre page on how news is “marked as disputed on Facebook” confirmed “this feature isn’t available to everyone yet”.

On 16 March, Associated Press published a “Fact Check” on the so-called “Irish slave trade” that rejected “the false articles, trending on social media”. It was billed as “part of an ongoing Associated Press effort to fact-check claims in suspected false news stories”.

Liam Hogan, a librarian and historian based in Limerick City, Ireland, who had been tracing the “‘Irish slaves’ meme” since 2015, tweeted that “Trump supporters ... [were] losing their minds” about the alert.

One right-wing blogger shared a screenshot of the alert on Twitter with the comment “Facebook’s pre-Thoughtcrime Unit appears to be up and running”.

Paul Joseph Watson, editor-at-large of conspiracy theory website Infowars, was critical of Snopes’ involvement in flagging disputed content, claiming: “Snopes is a bias [sic], far-left outfit. It is not a responsible ‘fact-checker’.”

https://twitter.com/PrisonPlanet/status/843203320588222465/photo/1

Concern about the impact of fake news on social media escalated after the US election, prompting Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg to confirm that the platform took misinformation seriously and was working to combat its spread.

In mid-December, Facebook announced it would begin flagging fake news stories with the help of users and five independent fact-checkers: ABC News, AP, FactCheck.org, Politifact and Snopes.

If enough of Facebook’s users reported a story as fake, the social network would pass it onto these third parties to scrutinize.

In a post on his own Facebook page announcing the changes, Zuckerberg admitted the business has a “greater responsibility” to the public than the average “distributor of news”.

“We’re a new kind of platform for public discourse – and that means we have a new kind of responsibility to enable people to have the most meaningful conversations, and to build a space where people can be informed,” he wrote.

**feeder**

This will further entrench the delusional muppets on the far left and far right that they are the oppressed owners of the truth and the normies are out to get them.

Really? Snopes, far-left?

**Rainbow Dash**

I certainly don't trust facebook, having an obvious agenda and had worked with dictatorships to censor people, to be the end all of deciding which news is fake.

**feeder**

Rainbow Dash wrote:
I certainly don't trust facebook, having an obvious agenda and had worked with dictatorships to censor people, to be the end all of deciding which news is fake.

Hey, anything that reduces my Nazi friend's Breitbart/Rebel Media BS and my Communist friend's David Wolfe/Occupy Democrats BS from cluttering my feed is a good thing.

**Breotan**

Here's the thing I find worth watching. Snopes flagged the irish slave article as "half true" instead of "false". How will these mixed ratings count toward flagging articles? What if you link to the article with the intent of discussing the actually true contents? Or to further debunk the false parts?

And what about those stupid meme-generator things that flood my feed?

**feeder**

Breotan wrote:
Here's the thing I find worth watching. Snopes flagged the irish slave article as "half true" instead of "false". How will these mixed ratings count toward flagging articles? What if you link to the article with the intent of discussing the actually true contents? Or to further debunk the false parts?

And what about those stupid meme-generator things that flood my feed?

I hope meme generator is exempt. I never get tired of those. Never.

**Kilkrazy**

The problem is that the bulk of fake news and conspiracy theories are generated by the far right wing. It therefore is inevitable that fact-checking them will be seen as 'left-wing' and biased.

We have to hope that enough people actually bother to look at the real facts, rather than reject them for not agreeing with their current opinion.

**Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl**

Kilkrazy wrote:
We have to hope that enough people actually bother to look at the real facts, rather than reject them for not agreeing with their current opinion.

That will NEVER happen. Though I agree it would be great.

**Compel**

I dunno, I think a lot of people aren't particularly invested in it all. They just see some person sharing some bs from Britain First, get momentarily outraged and press share. In that sort of situation, people may pause and think before sharing.

If facebook would extend the same service to pubs at 11pm at night, the majority of UKIPs voter base would vanish in moments.

**Ensis Ferrae**

Frankly, I wish that the User Reporting function worked more. I have family that regularly shares BS news from their derposphere and I'd rather not flag said family member's pages for spam/moderator support. I'd rather be able to user report articles that are "fake news" and potentially get others aware of the BS being posted.