Facebook notifies users to fight against fake news

The social network seeks to eliminate rumors and scandals on its platform

How reliable are you on Facebook? It seems a typical phrase of the tests that analyze the identity in social networks and that fill these platforms with applications of doubtful origin . But in reality it is a question that the engineers of Mark Zuckerberg's company have launched and are making to win the war of false news.

A method launched a year ago and that "is not intended to be an absolute indicator of a person's credibility," says Tessa Lyons, product manager of Facebook, in an interview with The Washington Post.

Facebook works to finish taking months of research to put an end to the false news in its network and that has caused more than a blush to its founder in front of the political authorities in the United States and, to a lesser extent, in Europe.

"It's not uncommon for people to tell us that something is false simply because they do not agree with the premise of a story or because they intentionally try to target a particular publisher," adds Lyons.

Facebook's directive explains in the Washington Post that this scoring system is a measure among thousands of "behavioral clues that Facebook takes into account," he adds. However, it is not clear what other criteria the company uses to determine a user's score, if all users have a score and how these points are used.

As revealed by the US media, Facebook has begun to assign its users a level of reputation, predicting its reliability on a scale of zero to 1. The social network, like other platforms such as Twitter, has entrusted the work of primary surveillance of these content to more than 2 billion users on its platform.

Users have started reporting items as false. "It is not uncommon for people to tell us that something is false simply because they do not agree with the premise of a story or because they are intentionally trying to target a particular publisher," says Lyons.

The second step after the initial report of the community is the review of the information by a Facebook verification team to confirm the truth of the complaint. However, the large number of reports is causing an increase in work so the scoring system aims to streamline the process.

Thanks to the creation of a history of false news reports and the scoring system established in recent months, Facebook workers will review more carefully the reports of false content on the platform.