DUBAI: Users and social networking platforms both have the responsibility to tackle the rise of fake news, Facebook’s Head of Public Policy in the Middle East, North Africa, and Pakistan, Nashwa Aly, said at a talk on the second day of Dubai’s 2018 Arab Media Forum on Wednesday.
Aly explained that social networking platforms like Facebook can empower the online community through creating web-based safety and prevention hubs – staffed by teams of moderators, offering apps that teach people how to recognize fake news, and providing tips that prompt the user to apply caution to information that might be fake.
“We should be asking ourselves the right questions when coming across a piece of information we aren’t sure about,” Aly said.
While teaching the public about the dangers of fake news and how to spot them would be a long process, Aly highlighted the role Facebook was playing to hinder the rise of misinformation in four steps.
“Our approach towards reaching an informed community goes as follows,” Aly said, “we stop bad actors from using our services, we disrupt their economic incentives, we alter our News Feed ranking, and finally we empower our community and partners.”
Facebook has recently been faced with a streak of scandals, with the company first coming under fire for promoting Russian propaganda during the 2016 US elections, and more recently for the 50 million users’ private information accessed by political data firm Cambridge Analytica that was hired by Donald Trump during his presidential campaign.
“By using machine learning to uncover coordinated behavior and taking action on unusual behavior we can crack down on fake accounts,” Aly said.
“As for disrupting economic incentives, we are working to prevent spammers from buying ads, as well as downranking posts and ads that link to low-quality web pages,” she added.
And Aly said that based on a variety of signals, publishers of fake news would have an increasingly difficult time getting widespread distribution on Facebook.
A LIST OF THE 4 STEPS FACEBOOK IS TAKING TO TACKLE FAKE NEWS
1) Stopping bad actors and fake accounts from using its services
2) Disrupting their economic incentives by banning the sale of ads to spammers
3) Downranking misinformation and halting widespread distribution on Facebook’s News Feed
4) Empowering the online community and partners through the creation of safety hubs, fake news educational tools and tips for identifying false information
