This move by the giant social network came in the wake of the unexpected victory of Ronald Trump in the recently concluded US presidential elections. Some FB critics blamed fake posts on the website, which they believed influenced the voters' choice of a candidate to vote for.
One notable fake news stated that there is a coup d'etat planned against Donald Trump and that he won in the popular voting.
"Detecting fake news regarding the US elections is difficult considering that supporters of both parties post biased articles," wrote Mark Hacman, Senior Editor of PC World.
We do not want to be arbiters of truth ourselves, but instead rely on our community and trusted third parties," wrote Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO, on his post last Friday. Fact-checking systems will also be used to detect erroneous or false information posted.
Social media has become a major influence on people's choice and decisions. In a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, 20 percent of the respondents revealed that what they see and read in social media networks such as the Facebook changed their stand on certain issues while 17 percent stated that it changed their decision as to the presidential candidate that would elect.
According to Facebook CEO, only around 1 percent of all items posted on Facebook are fake. The remaining 99% are genuine.
To make sure that all news posted on people's social media websites are genuine, Facebook will hire verifiers of the items posted. These employees will authenticate the truth of the reports posted on the website. Easy ways to report false data will be implemented to encourage other people to be vigilant regarding such issues.
"A lot of misinformation is driven by financially motivated spam," Zuckerberg wrote.
To prove that Facebook is serious about eradicating fake news from the social network pages, the CEO ordered that placing Ads on websites found to be submitting false information will be stopped and the articles flagged as fake.
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