Facebook to now 'fact-check' photos, videos
San Francisco, Sep 14 : In a bid to curb the spread of misinformation, social networking giant Facebook is now expanding its fact-checking capabilities to all of its third-party analysis partners around the world to examine the authenticity of the photos and videos shared on the platform.
"We have built a Machine Learning (ML) model that uses various engagement signals, including feedback from people on Facebook, to identify potentially false content and then send to the fact-checkers for review who analyse the content metadata along with other information to assess the truth or falsity of a photo or video by combining these skills with other journalistic practices or government agencies," Facebook said in a statement late on Thursday.
Based on testing and research, the social networking company claimed that misinformation in photos and videos falls into three categories -- manipulated or fabricated, out-of-context and text or audio claim -- which the platform aims to monitor and reduce.
"We use optical character recognition (OCR) to extract text from photos and compare that text to headlines from fact-checkers' articles and now we are also working on new ways to detect if a photo or video has been manipulated," the company added.
According to Tessa Lyons who is a Product Manager at Facebook, the company started its work on misinformation with articles because that was what people in the US said was the most prevalent form of false news they were seeing.
"What they would do is they will share articles that contain misinformation - and people would be surprised by the headlines because they were false. So, they will click on those articles and land on websites where bad actors were monetising their impressions with ads," Lyons said.
Expanding the fact-checking capabilities of Facebook to third-party partners would add more ratings on the accuracy of the content circulating on the platform using which it would be easier to improve the credibility of Facebook's ML model.
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Lokayukta raids govt officials in Karnataka
Bengaluru (PTI): The Lokayukta on Thursday conducted simultaneous raids at the premises of several government officials across different districts of Karnataka in connection with alleged possession of disproportionate assets, officials said.
The searches were carried out at multiple locations linked to officials working in various government departments in districts including Bengaluru, Mandya, Dharwad, Hassan, Mysuru, Vijayapura and Yadgir, among others, they said.
According to Lokayukta officials, the raids targeted officials holding posts such as Assistant Executive Engineer, Junior Engineer, Deputy Electrical Inspector and Taluk Backward Classes Welfare Officer.
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Among those raided was Assistant Executive Engineer M C Satyanarayana of the Hassan Municipal Corporation.
High drama unfolded during the raid at Satyanarayana’s residence in Hassan, where Lokayukta officials were forced to wait outside the house for more than an hour before gaining access as the door was not opened, sources said.
When Satyanarayana failed to respond to requests to open the gate, officials attempted to enter the house by climbing to the first floor.
In another case, officials conducted searches at the residence of Chief Engineer Vasantappa Nayak of Karnataka Rural Infrastructure Development Limited located in Akshaya Colony in Hubballi, sources said.
Currently serving in Bengaluru, Nayak had been transferred from Hubballi to Bengaluru in April last year. Officials are carrying out searches at his residence in Akshaya Colony, they said.
The raids were conducted by multiple teams of Lokayukta officials early in the morning at the residences and offices of the suspects following complaints regarding disproportionate assets.
