Facebook Strengthens Anti-Fake News Program Ahead of EU Elections

Ahead of the European Parliament Elections in May, Facebook has made fighting misinformation a top priority, the company said in the blog. One of the ways they reduce the spread of false news is by partnering with independent, third-party fact-checkers around the world.

Facebook announced the expansion of this program in the EU with five new local fact-checking partners: Ellinika Hoaxes in Greece, FactCheckNI in Northern Ireland, Faktograf in Croatia, Observador in Portugal and Patikrinta 15min in Lithuania. These organizations will review and rate the accuracy of content on Facebook.

Fact-checking partners are all accredited by the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), which applies standards such as non-partisanship and transparency of sources. These partners are also part of a collaborative effort led by IFCN to fact-check content related to the European Parliament elections, called FactCheckEU. Starting this week, all FactCheckEU participants will able to rate and review claims on Facebook.

The program now includes 21 partners fact-checking content in 14 European languages: Croatian, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish. When a fact-checker rates a story as false, Facebook shows it lower in News Feed, significantly reducing its distribution. This reduces the spread of the story and the number of people who see it. Once a story is rated as false, Facebook has been able to reduce its distribution by 80%.

This program is part of three-part framework to improve the quality and authenticity of stories in News Feed. Facebook removes accounts and content that violate Community Standards or ad policies, reduce the distribution of false news and inauthentic content like clickbait, and inform people by giving them more context on the posts they see. In line with this approach, they’re working on additional measures to protect elections in the EU.