Facebook has been tackling the spread of fake news recently, and they have done things to stop the spread of it by eliminating the trending news section on their platform. Facebook is not the only platform responsible for spreading fake news, because Twitter, Instagram, and many others share the blame as well. One of the core aspects of journalism rests on reporting accurate information to the public.

The decision to shut down the trending news section was done weeks ago and now the company has announced that they will be using new technology to battle fake news by expanding their fact-checking program and implementing intelligent AI technology.

Articles from TechCrunch and C/Net were used for information in this article.

Expanding fact-checking program

Facebook has implemented a program with fact-checkers, who rate the accuracy of a story and if it is false, "lowering them in the news feed." Today (June 21), the company announced that they are expanding the fact-checking program to 14 countries around the world, and it will continue to expand to others in the future. The program is very effective as "the impact of fact-checking reduced the distribution of fake news by an average of 80 percent."

People on Facebook have been using memes that spread inaccurate information by having the images from a different time period to push political aims.

Politics has been rough around the edges this year alone and individuals have been posting misleading videos or memes to get a point across. The plan is to also use a "machine learning technology" to help it track and take down multiple fake stories. It will also be working with another brand called "Schema.org's Claim Review" to allow fact checkers to share ratings with Facebook so the brand can act quickly.

Effective AI technology

Although fact-checkers have been able to greatly eliminate the spread of fake news, AI technology will also help in the fight because there is too much content that is posted daily for individuals to review the stories and take them out. An example is that the AI technology was used to weed out "fake medical advice as Facebook took the post down and used AI to weed out more than 1,400 links making the same claim." So not only will the technology stop inaccurate stories but help eliminate the spread of similar stories.

An article by CNet points out that "Facebook's AI will also start noticing repeat offenders. It can take action like demonetizing the page or reducing how many people can see it."

Elon Musk vocal about stopping fake news

Famous Entrepreneur, Elon Musk, has been very vocal about stopping the spread of inaccurate information and has proposed a grand solution for it all as well. Musk wants to create a database rating system that would rate journalists on their accuracy and authenticity. So the journalists or media outlets who are spreading fake news would be punished greatly with a low rating and lose viewers/business as a result. He plans on naming the website "Pravda," after the name of the Soviet propaganda news agency.

This, along with Facebook's measures, would severely crack down on fake news.
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