Facebook now greying out ‘false’ photos and videos to stop spread of fake news over UK general election
FACEBOOK is now greying out "fake" photos and videos in the UK as the general election nears.
The firm revealed that it was ramping up its fight against fake news – and users will already be seeing this latest change.
With its 2.4billion global users, Facebook is increasingly the target of political meddling.
Now Facebook is on high alert for potential "fake news" campaigns as the December 12 election approaches.
A new tactic to shut down misinformation is a grey screen that will block out some photos or videos.
"People will now see a more prominent label on photos and videos that have been fact-checked as false or partly false," said Antonia Woodford, Product Manager for Misinformation at Facebook.
"This is a grey screen that sits over a post and says 'false information' and points people to fact-checkers' articles debunking the claims."
These grey screens will only appear on photos and videos, and no other types of posts.
That means news articles and text posts will be exempt from the greying-out.
Posts will be masked if they've been rated as false by third-party fact-checkers.
That means Facebook itself isn't deciding what's false or not. Instead, it works with Full Fact and FactCheckNI in the UK.
"Our fact-checking partners are all accredited by the International Fact-Checking Network which requires them to abide by a code of principles such as nonpartisanship and transparency sources," Woodford explained.
However, it's still not clear how Facebook will treat memes or parody posts that may not be "true", but are intended for comic purposes – and not to spread misinformation.
How does Facebook fact-check posts?
Here's what Facebook's Antonia Woodford said...
- "We identify content that may be false using signals such as feedback from our users."
- "This content is all submitted into a queue for our fact-checking partners to access."
- "These fact-checkers then choose which content to review, check the facts, and rate the accuracy of the content."
- "These fact-checkers are independent organizations, so it is at their discretion what they choose to investigate."
- "They can also fact-check whatever content they want outside of the posts we send their way."
The Sun understands that Facebook is investigating the best way of expanding this tool to work across other types of posts.
Facebook also promised to push Brits to register and vote in a bid to improve election participation.
Users logging onto Facebook in the coming weeks will see prompts to join the electoral roll.
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