THE BIG ISSUE: FAKE NEWS Facebook slammed for fake news inaction
FACEBOOK has been slammed for a “ludicrous” approach to protecting the federal election after the company revealed it would hire fact checkers but wouldn’t delete false news they identified.
The social media giant’s fact checking measures to “safeguard” the election did not start until days after the campaign began.
“AFP began its fact checking operations in Australia this week,” Facebook’s fact checking partner Agence FrancePresse told News Corp.
It comes as fake anti-immigration quotes from cricket legend Shane Warne went viral on Facebook on Monday, spread by multiple right-wing groups before the initial post and page were deleted.
A Storyful Australia analysis identified Warringah independent candidate Zali Steggall and Labor MP Anne Aly as targets of fake news.
An image of Ms Steggall’s billboard that was photoshopped to include the GetUp logo has been shared across Facebook and Twitter.
The barrister and Olympian introduced a myth busting section on her website to address such claims.
AFP’s Asia-Pacific factcheck editor Karl Malakunas said the company would publish its initial fact checks “in the coming days” on its website.
Facebook refused to disclose how many posts or stories had so far been rated “false” by fact checkers but confirmed it would not remove the posts.
It will “demote” inaccurate or deliberately misleading news articles and pictures on its platform, potentially allowing its audience to be tricked by political propaganda.
“Once a story is rated as false, we show it lower in News Feed, reducing its future views by more than 80 per cent on average,” Facebook Australia and New Zealand policy director Mia Garlick said when the social media company confirmed this month it would launch fact checking.
A spokesman yesterday said: “We also leverage these ratings to take action on pages and websites that repeatedly share misinformation.
“We de-prioritise all content from pages who repeatedly get ‘false’ ratings on content they share, and we remove their advertising and monetisation rights.”
Experts have slammed the company’s efforts to protect the election as disappointing, with one warning social media users to treat “every day like April Fool’s Day” to avoid being manipulated.
Swinburne University social media senior lecturer Belinda Barnet said merely limiting the audience for false information did not go far enough.
“It seems ludicrous that Facebook would employ an agency to tell them whether content was fake or not and then not act on it,” she said.
“If moderators determine content is fake, it should be taken down. They need to remove this content permanently.”
Dr Barnet said Facebook’s failure to remove inaccurate stories showed the company wanted “to be seen to be doing something” to fix its platform but did not want to follow through with action.
Social media commentator Ming Johanson warned that many Australian social media users had poor digital literacy and needed to employ greater scepticism of content circulating online.
“We should treat every day like it’s April Fool’s Day rather than just trusting things blindly,” she said.
It’s understood Facebook fact checkers will step in when users report stories as inaccurate or comment on them “expressing disbelief”. The story will then be rated for accuracy and a description of its content provided.
“We let people who try to share the story know there’s more reporting on the subject, and we notify people who shared it earlier,” a spokesman said.
“We also show the fact checker’s reference article in Related Articles immediately below the story in News Feed.”
Twitter said it wouldn’t take any action to check the accuracy of content shared on its platform but would encourage users not to share information they couldn’t verify.
Cricketer Shane Warne was forced to deny making anti-immigration comments after a fake quote attributed to him was shared almost 3000 times on Facebook on Monday.
A page called ‘Future Now News’ posted a photo of Warne with the quote: “I’m worried about where this country is heading. I feel our immigration system isn’t getting things right. Whose team are the politicians batting for? Not Australia.”
Warne later took to Twitter to debunk the post, saying: “Never said that. Someone has made it up.”
The post and the page were removed by Facebook on Tuesday.
Other right-wing pages, including the Australian Tea Party and Australian Protectionist Party pages, shared the post but later removed it. The Coalition is more concerned about the threat of foreign interference than fake news and is tackling it with a multi-agency taskforce that includes spy agency ASIO, the Australian Electoral Commission, the Australian Federal Police and others. The AEC has launched a campaign over Facebook, Twitter and Instagram in 29 languages to warn Australians about misinformation during the election.
It is urging Australians to be responsible for checking the validity of media and social media they are exposed to during the campaign. Labor says fake news and disinformation “threatens our democracy” and is considering a multifaceted plan to tackle it if it wins the election.
The party will await the consumer watchdog’s report into digital giants like Facebook and Google on June 3 but has indicated it will pressure the companies to use technology to “weed out fake pages”. Labor could also launch a media literacy campaign to help Australians identify fake news and trusted sources.