After the flood of fake news began to appear on Facebook, the company began implementing preventive measures. The platform uses intermediary services, such as Snopes, that check content and use their expertise to combat the spread of misinformation.
“They basically used us when they had the crisis,” said Brooke Binkowski, former director of Snopes, a fact-checking website that has been working with Facebook for the past two years.
“They don’t take anything seriously. They’re more interested in looking good so they can keep making money… It’s clear they don’t care,” he told the Guardian. The largest social network, of course, denied the allegations.
Brooke Binkowski reported that at least once, Facebook encouraged reviewers to prioritize removing information that harms its advertisers.
Facebook began working with news organizations after the 2016 presidential election, an election that made the term fake news part of the global vocabulary.
To combat the new trend, Facebook has partnered with more than 40 news organizations, including the Associated Press, Politifact, and fake news detection sites like Snopes.
But despite this, Facebook continues to be inundated with fake news, sparking backlash. Many cite the platform's slow, and sometimes nonexistent, response. Others believe the company is simply ignoring the problem, seeking to better manage how the public views them rather than trying to combat misinformation.
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