Fight Against Fake News In 2018
Fight Against Fake News In 2018 https://pixabay.com/photo-1909821/

Internet and social media giants Google and Facebook are expected to keep implementing safety measures against fake news in 2018. The two leading content distributors have recently announced new moves that aim to curtail the spread of false information online.

Earlier this month, Google introduced a new rule that bans foreign news sites from misleading readers about their country of origin. The rule states that “sites that misrepresent or conceal their country of origin or are directed at users in another country under false premises” will be removed from Google News.

However, sites that violate this new rule may still find their way into social media networks. Being removed from Google News means that content pages from culpable sites will not show in Google News search results. These pages will remain online for subscribers and sharers.

In a statement, Google said that users should be able to understand and see the source of their online news. In order for that to happen, sites should be transparent about their real origins.

For its part, Facebook has ditched its red icon for “disputed flag” or content that may consist of fake news. In lieu of the red icon, Facebook will show “Related Articles” to give readers a better context when browsing through their newsfeed. The social media network announced its decision to modify its safety measure against fake news through its newsroom post on Dec. 20.

“Just because something is marked as 'false' or 'disputed' doesn’t necessarily mean we will be able to change someone’s opinion about its accuracy,” Jeff Smith, Facebook Product Designer, said. He added that studies on “Related Articles” have found that better context for readers resulted in fewer shares of baseless reports.

Facebook started reviewing its “Related Articles” measure in April this year. A month before announcing its modified system to fight fake news, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told the media that his company will invest more in innovations that will help stop the spread of fake news through the popular social networking site.

The four students who worked on the software against fake news are Michael Lopez-Brau, Stefan Uddenberg, Alex Cui and Jeff An. Lopez-Brau and Uddenberg are studying for their doctoral degree in Yale’s psychology department. Cui studies machine learning at the California Institute of Technology, while An studies computer science at the University of Waterloo. They worked together for Yale University’s Hackathon event.

“The solution is not to just tell people if something is fake or not. The solution is to develop a kind of a news auto-immune system,” Cui told the media.

In a speech during Facebook’s announcement of its third-quarter earnings in 2017, Zuckerberg said that Facebook is growing well, but it does not matter if its users are being subjected to fake news. Thus, he emphasised that his company’s priority is protecting its community of users. The company also announced it would double its manpower for safety and security to 20,000 by the end of 2018.

Facebook’s third-quarter revenue soared by 47 percent to $10.3 billion, beating analyst expectations that it would earn only about $9.84 billion for the period. Meanwhile, Google’s parent company, Alphabet, made $27.77 billion in revenue against expectations of about $27.2 billion.