After Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote about his concern with “fake news” on November 12, Facebook followed up on Thursday by announcing that the company would utilize Snopes, Factcheck.org, ABC News, PolitiFact, and The Associated Press to fact-check its news feed.
That list of organizations that clearly lean to the left infuriated conservatives, including Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center, who had his own response on Friday:
Below is my full statement on Facebook's recent announcement about 'fake news.' pic.twitter.com/VjXXBM88zS
— Brent Bozell (@BrentBozell) December 16, 2016
Even the leftist New York Times expressed concern with Zuckerberg’s method of tackling the problem in an op-ed by Jessica Lessin, founder and chief executive of The Information: “Hiring editors to enforce accuracy — or even promising to enforce accuracy by partnering with third parties — would create the perception that Facebook is policing the “truth,” and that is worrisome. The first reason has to do with the nature of Facebook’s business. The second has to do with the news business … One thing is clear to anyone who has worked in a newsroom: Not all fact-checking decisions are black and white.”
Zuckerman had stated in November:
We don’t want any hoaxes on Facebook. Our goal is to show people the content they will find most meaningful, and people want accurate news. We have already launched work enabling our community to flag hoaxes and fake news, and there is more we can do here. We have made progress, and we will continue to work on this to improve further.
A Facebook representative told Business Insider that the company would use algorithms that detected whether a story that appeared to be fake was going viral.
Source: The Daily Wire
