After being in the eye of the storm over fake news and Cambridge Analytica’s data harvesting for manipulating elections, Facebook is taking steps to avoid a replay in Karnataka, where elections start on May 12.
Facebook, which has 217 million monthly active users in India, has announced a third-party fact checking programme in Karnataka to fight spread of fake news on its platform. This will be in partnership with BOOM, an independent digital journalism initiative, for a pilot programme that will be rolled out in the State.
“When a fact-checker rates a story as false, we will show it lower in News Feed, significantly reducing its distribution. This, in turn, stops the hoax from spreading and reduces the number of people who see it,” Facebook said in a statement.
BOOM is part of Ping Digital Network (www.pingnetwork.in) based in Mumbai. It is a fact checking website and has been in existence since 2014.
“We are beginning small and know it is important to learn from this test and listen to our community as we continue to update ways for people to understand what might be false news in their News Feed,” Facebook said.
Pages and domains that repeatedly share false news will also see their distribution reduced and their ability to monetise and advertise removed.
If the third-party fact-checkers write articles debunking a false news story, Facebook will show it in “Related Articles” immediately below the story in News Feed.
“We’ll also send people and Page Admins notifications if they try to share a story or have shared one in the past that’s been determined to be false,” Facebook noted.
According to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, it is important to make sure no one interferes in any more elections, including in India. “Our goals are to understand Facebook’s impact on upcoming elections — like Brazil, India, Mexico and the US midterms — and to inform our future product and policy decisions,” he said while testifying before the US Congress last week.