Facebook’s Attempt To Combat ‘Fake News’ Raises Concerns

In a statement that was released from Facebook on Monday, the company revealed that it will be introducing trial measures in Germany to combat ‘fake news’.

From Tech Crunch:

This followed a storm of criticism about Facebook’s role in the US presidential election, with many commentators pointing the finger of blame at the social media giant for not doing enough to stop the spread of bogus information via its News Feed. Not least because, according to a 2016 Pew study, a majority of US adults get news via social media. Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg also finally conceded the company has “a greater responsibility than just building technology that information flows through”, rowing back from his previously stated position that Facebook is a technology company, not a media firm. TRENDING: ANGRY LEFTIST Smacks 84-Year-Old Female Trump Supporter Across the Face at Trump Rally in Aliso Viejo -- Beats Another Senior (VIDEO) “While we don’t write the news stories you read and share, we also recognize we’re more than just a distributor of news,” he wrote in a status update on December 15. “We’re a new kind of platform for public discourse — and that means we have a new kind of responsibility to enable people to have the most meaningful conversations, and to build a space where people can be informed.” Measures Facebook has been testing in the U.S. to fight fake news — and which will soon be arriving in Germany — focus on three areas: making it easier for users to report fake news — currently by letting users click in the top right corner to report a suspect post

badging suspect content with ‘truth warnings’ and down-ranking it to make it harder for it to spread. To identify fake news Facebook is working with external fact checkers who are signatories of Poynter’s International Fact Checking Code of Principles

reducing financial incentives for spammers to create fake news as a route to generating advertising revenue by “eliminating the ability for them to spoof well-known news websites and enforcing our existing policies on a more proactive basis”. (Back in November both Facebook and Google banned fake news sites from using their ad networks in a bit to throttle ad-based revenue streams that incentivize fake news.)

One of the most outrageous features of Facebook’s trial run in combating ‘fake news’ is that users can report ‘fake news’. While this may sound like a good idea, an individual could report a story as ‘fake news’ simply because they don’t like the content or they don’t agree with what is being said.

Facebook is rushing in to Germany to release this new ‘fake news’ feature in Germany because the country is due to have elections this year and Angela Merkel is on the hot seat due to her failing globalist policies.

Facebook Accused Of Censoring Conservative News

Facebook has been accused for along time of censoring ‘fake news’. This is especially not surprising considering that many of Facebook’s executives are Democrats and have even admitted to trying to help Hillary Clinton win the 2016 election.

From Fox News:

Facebook has finished their own internal investigation into censoring conservatives in their trending section, and surprise, they’ve found no evidence of overt bias. Still, in the wake of a very rough week and tough questions from a U.S. senator, Facebook has now agreed to revamp that section in order to prevent any “unintentional bias.”

Other examples of Facebook’s ties to the Democratic Party:

From Breitbart:

The emails released by WikiLeaks show Sandberg offering to organise a meeting between Podesta and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerburg… …Sandberg goes on to explain the possible nature of such a meeting, saying that Zuckerburg is “meeting with people to learn more about next steps for his philanthropy and social action” and is “interested in meeting people who could help him understand how to move the needle on the specific public policy issues he cares most about.”…

From The American Mirror:

Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg is with her — and is likely using Facebook resources to help Hillary Clinton get elected. An email released by Wikileaks shows Clinton chief of staff Cheryl Mills was coordinating a meeting with Sandberg for her to share her research on “gender and leadership by women” in 2015.

From CNN: