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Facebook and Full Fact team up to counter fake news in the UK

Facebook and Full Fact team up to counter fake news in the UK

The British charity organisation Full Fact is partnering up with Facebook to eliminate fake news stories in the UK.

The announcement came on Friday and is a continuation of Facebook’s effort’s to help alleviate and eliminate fake news that gets posted on the platform. This had started shortly after the 2016 election in the United States, but this is the very first time Facebook has taken steps outside of the US and the UK.

“Full Fact will focus on reviewing and rating misinformation which carries the most potential for harming people’s safety or undermining democratic processes – such as dangerous cancer ‘cures’, false stories spreading after terror attacks or fake content about how to vote ahead of elections, Facebook stated in a press release.

The service is dependent on users flagging information that is posted, which will then be reviewed by trusted Full-Fact checkers and rated based on its accuracy.

Information that gets flagged as false will get brought down to the bottom of Facebook’s news feed and be marked as false if found inaccurate. While Facebook won’t delete the information that gets flagged, it will be clearly marked as content that isn’t accurate.

Facebook also noted in their statement that content that gets flagged will only be reviewed if it is presented as factual information, while anything like satire or general opinion will be ignored and left alone. At different points of the year, Full Fact will also produce reports about the program to show how effective it is when implemented.


Staff Writer