Facebook chief hits back over fake news criticism

FACEBOOK takes its responsibilities over fake news “very seriously” and is “focused” on removing the financial incentives for peddling false information, one of the social media giant’s leading executives has maintained.

The online firm has faced fierce criticism after it was found to be taking money from hoaxers placing misleading adverts on the newsfeed page.

But Facebook’s chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, denied that warning users about questionable news via “disputed content” signs reflected a transition from the company being a platform to a publisher.

One advert claimed, entirely falsely, that the star of

Lord Sugar, was “out of control”, and featured an apparently manipulated picture of the Amstrad founder with bruises on his face.

Facebook users who clicked on the advert were taken to a page made to look like The newspaper website, in which Lord Sugar was wrongly quoted as supporting a money-making scheme.

Facebook has made high-profile efforts to tackle the proliferation of misinformation on its platform.

It has unveiled a “multipronged strategy” including offering users advice for spotting hoaxes that appear in their newsfeeds.

In an interview with BBC Ms Sandberg said: “We are really a platform and we take our responsibilities on false news very seriously. “False news hurts everyone because it makes our community uninformed, it hurts our community, it hurts countries.

“And we know that people want to see accurate news on Facebook and that’s what we want them to see.”

She said Facebook did not want to be an “arbiter of the truth”, saying having such an editorial voice was not “appropriate for us”.

will be broadcast tonight at 10.30pm on BBC2.