Facebook taking anti-fake-news steps

Facebook announced an expansion of several initiatives Thursday to combat the spread of misinformation on the social network used by more than 2 billion people.

In a company blog, Facebook acknowledged that fake news reports and doctored content have increasingly become image-based in some countries, making it harder for readers to discern whether a photo or video related to a news event is authentic. The company said it has expanded its fact-checking of traditional links posted on Facebook to photos and videos. Partnering with third-party experts trained in visual verification, the company also will flag images that have been posted on Facebook in a misleading context, such as, for example, a photo of a previous natural disaster or shooting that is displayed as a present-day event.

Facebook also will use machine-learning tools to identify duplicates of debunked stories that continue to pop up on the network. The company said that more than 1 billion pictures, links, videos and messages are uploaded to the social platform every day, making factchecking difficult to execute by human review. The automated tools will help the company find domains and links that are spreading the same claims that have already been proved false. Facebook has said it will use artificial intelligence to limit misinformation, but the latest update applies to finding duplicates of false claims.