Facebook is expanding its trial of measures to combat fake news beyond the U.S. for the first time — and will shortly be rolling out the updates in Germany. In a blog post yesterday the company said it will be introducing the updates to the market “in the coming weeks”.
Last month Facebook’s VP of News Feed, Adam Mosseri, detailed the company’s plans for fighting fake news being shared and amplified on the platform.
This followed a storm of criticism about Facebook’s role in the US presidential election, with many commentators pointing the finger of blame at the social media giant for not doing enough to stop the spread of bogus information via its News Feed. Not least because, according to a 2016 Pew study, a majority of US adults get news via social media.
Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg also finally conceded the company has “a greater responsibility than just building technology that information flows through”, rowing back from his previously stated position that Facebook is a technology company, not a media firm.
“While we don’t write the news stories you read and share, we also recognize we’re more than just a distributor of news,” he wrote in a status update on December 15. “We’re a new kind of platform for public discourse — and that means we have a new kind of responsibility to enable people to have the most meaningful conversations, and to build a space where people can be informed.”
Measures Facebook has been testing in the U.S. to fight fake news — and which will soon be arriving in Germany — focus on three areas:(read here)
