Facebook’s Canadian fact checker says trust your gut
Montreal-based professional debunker sees poor grammar as fake-news red flag
This week, Immigration Canada was inundated with calls from people who wanted to know how to get on the list for a new visa lottery.
Immigration Canada doesn’t hold a lottery for entry into the country, and has no plans to do so. However, a false story making the rounds in Ghana and Nigeria misled thousands into thinking they could be picked at random for Canadian citizenship.
The job of debunking that socalled fake news fell on Montreal-based Louis Baudoin-Laarman, Facebook’s lone fact checker for false news emanating from or reporting about Canada. BaudoinLaarman, 24, works for Agence France-Presse, and writes exclusively for the wire service’s factchecking blog. Facebook has hired AFP to sift through trending news and debunk false and misleading stories.
Baudoin-Laarman, who was hired in June, is aware his task is daunting, because of the sheer amount of false information circulating on social networks. He generally prioritizes articles that have been shared more than 1,000 times.
In the fake visa lottery story, he found an official statement from the Canadian government denying such a lottery would be held and wrote an explanatory post that was published on the AFP’s blog. Afterwards anyone who clicked on the link on Facebook was notified that the information had been debunked, with a link to the debunked post.
A former fact checker for the New York Times, Baudoin-Laarman gets access to Facebook posts that have been flagged by users, but he also scans the social network, or is alerted by colleagues.
He said people spread false information either to denigrate someone politically, to get paid per click, or if they are trying to sell a product by making misleading claims.
Despite the avalanche of fake news that plagued the U.S. during the 2016 election, BaudoinLaarman said it doesn’t seem like foreign powers try to influence Canadian elections, as he didn’t have to debunk any election-related material during the most recent Quebec or New Brunswick campaigns. However, there are many fake news posts that target Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, most of which originate in Canada or the U.S., Baudoin-Laarman said.
How to spot fake news: Trust your gut: If something doesn’t look legitimate, it probably isn’t. Look out for bad grammar, capital letters or exclamation points. Pay attention to headlines that don’t match the text of the article. Beware articles that have no source backing their claims, or if the claims are reported by only one source.