Facebook is partnering with German news agency DPA as part of a large-scale effort to fight fake news through fact-checking ahead of the European Parliament election in May. The Silicon Valley-based social networking company has been under pressure around the world since the Brexit referendum and the 2016 US presidential election to end fake accounts swaying public opinion in politics. Tessa Lyons, head of news feed integrity at Facebook, told journalists in Berlin Monday that Facebook plans to increase the number of people fighting fake news globally to 30,000 by the end of the year from 20,000 currently. Lyons said the joint-plans with DPA include a 24-hour staffed operations centre of engineers, data scientists, researchers, and policy experts, and coordinate with external organisations. Facebook will also train more than 100,000 students in Germany in media literacy and seek to stop paid advertising being misused for political ends. Germany has been particularly proactive in trying … [Read more...] about Facebook teams up with German news agency DPA to fight fake news ahead of EU elections
Fighting fake news
Delhi college students develop an app to fight fake news
WhatsFarzi, a new app aims at detecting fake news at the end users In order to fight fake news, a group of students from Delhi have launched a new app which allows users to analyse authenticity of a message in text or image form. Three BTech students of Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, Delhi (IIIT-Delhi or IIIT-D) Madhur Tandon, Suryatej Reddy Vyalla and Dhruv Kuchhal have developed this app, which will help end users to check the authenticity of news spreading on Facebook and WhatsApp. The newly developed app named 'WhatsFarzi' was made under the supervision of Ponnurangam Kumaraguru, associate professor, department of computer science, which enables people to check the authenticity of the content, message or an image on social media. All you need to do is download 'WhatsFarzi' from Google playstore. To check the authenticity of a viral text or image getting, one needs to copy and paste it in the designated space in the app. The app will then rate the content on the … [Read more...] about Delhi college students develop an app to fight fake news
EU urges internet giants to work harder fighting fake news
Updated 3:44 am PST, Tuesday, January 29, 2019 FILE - In this March 29, 2018, file photo, the logo for Facebook appears on screens at the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York's Times Square. Facebook says it's tightening up requirements for European Union political ads ahead of bloc-wide elections scheduled for May. It's part of the company's latest efforts to fight misinformation on its platforms. The social media giant said Monday, Jan. 28, 2019 that political ad buyers will need to have their identities confirmed before placing ads, which will also be entered into a public archive. less FILE - In this March 29, 2018, file photo, the logo for Facebook appears on screens at the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York's Times Square. Facebook says it's tightening up requirements for European Union ... more Photo: Richard Drew, AP … [Read more...] about EU urges internet giants to work harder fighting fake news
Facebook vows to fight fake news, foreign interference in EU elections
Facebook has vowed protect the integrity of the upcoming European Parliament elections by launching new measures to combat fake news and foreign interference. The social media giant said it was committed to giving people a voice in the May vote, while ensuring that the platform is not used to stop the election from being conducted fairly. “Learning from every election over the last two years, we have increased our capabilities to take down fake accounts, reduce false news, increase ads transparency, disrupt bad actors and support an informed and engaged electorate,” Anika Geisel, who leads the company’s public policy for elections in Europe, said in a blog post on Monday. The pledges came amid increased pressure on the social network from regulators and the public after it emerged last year that British consultancy Cambridge Analytica had improperly acquired data on millions of US users to target election advertising. So, what will Facebook actually do? Foreign … [Read more...] about Facebook vows to fight fake news, foreign interference in EU elections
WhatsApp to Spend $1 Million on Research to Fight ‘Fake News’
Facebook-owned WhatsApp is reportedly spending $1 million on academic research in an effort to understand and combat “fake news” and misinformation. According to Wired, the encrypted messaging service “has announced it is giving 20 different research groups $50,000 to help it understand the ways that rumors and fake news spread on its platform.”“The groups are based around the world and will be responsible for producing reports on how the messaging app has impacted certain regions,” Wired explained. “The range of areas that are being studied highlight the scale of misinformation that WhatsApp faces. One set of researchers from the U.K. and U.S. are set to see how misinformation can lead to disease outbreaks in elderly people, one will look at how information was shared on WhatsApp in the 2018 Brazilian elections and another is examining how posts can go viral on the messaging service.” This week, the BBC claimed “nationalism” … [Read more...] about WhatsApp to Spend $1 Million on Research to Fight ‘Fake News’