Facebook expands fact-checking initiative to new countries
San Francisco, June 22 : Facebook has announced to expand its fact-checking programme to new countries that aims to fight spread of fake news on its platform.
The social media giant now has the fact-checking programme running in 14 countries and plans to scale to more countries by the end of the year.
"These certified, independent fact-checkers rate the accuracy of stories on Facebook, helping us reduce the distribution of stories rated as false by an average of 80 per cent," Tessa Lyons, Product Manager at Facebook, said in a blog post on Thursday.
In India, Facebook already is in partnership with a Mumbai-based fact checking organisation called Boom.
Like other Facebook fact-checking partners, Boom is certified through the International Fact-Checking Network, a non-partisan international fact checking network at Poynter.
Facebook has also expanded its test to fact-check photos and videos to four countries.
"The test includes those that are manipulated (a video that is edited to show something that did not really happen) or taken out of context (a photo from a previous tragedy associated with a different, present day conflict)," the company said.
Machine learning is helping Facebook identify duplicates of debunked stories.
"We're going to start working with our fact-checking partners to use Schema.orgas aClaim Review', an open-source framework used by various technology companies and fact-checking organisations," Lyons said.
To help curb foreign interference in public discourse, Facebook said it is going to use Machine Learning to help identify and demote foreign Pages that are likely to spread financially-motivated hoaxes to people in other countries.
In April, Facebook announced a new elections research commission to help provide independent research about the role of social media in elections, as well as democracy more generally.
"We're currently working with the commission to develop privacy-protected data sets, which will include a sample of links that people engage with on Facebook," the company added.
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#Mossad trending on ‘X’ since Iranian President’s death in chopper crash; Here’s why
Tehran: Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who was considered a potential successor to the supreme leader, died in a helicopter crash in northern Iran, state media reported on Monday. He was 63.
The tragic incident occurred amidst heightened tensions in the Middle East, particularly due to the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict. Last month, under the directive of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Raisi had overseen an unprecedented drone-and-missile attack on Israel, further escalating regional unrest.
Social media buzzed with speculation following the news of the crash. On the microblogging platform ‘X’, the hashtag #Mossad trended as netizens speculated that the Israeli intelligence agency was behind the mishap. One user commented, “It’s never an accident,” reflecting widespread suspicions.
President Raisi was returning from a ceremony to open a dam on Iran’s border with Azerbaijan when the helicopter crashed. He had been in Azerbaijan earlier on May 19 to inaugurate the dam alongside Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev. Raisi’s death was confirmed in a statement by Vice President Mohsen Mansouri and on state television, according to Reuters.
The helicopter crash follows recent escalations in the region. Iran had launched a deluge of drones and missiles on Israel in response to a suspected Israeli strike that killed top Iranian officials in Syria, deepening the conflict between the two countries.
