Facebook steps up fact checking

Facebook is expanding its fact-checking network in India to curb the spread of misinformation as the world’s largest democracy prepares for a general election that must be held by May, the U.S.-based social media giant said.

Background 

Facebook, a social media and social networking site, was launched by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004 along with some of his Harvard roommates. Almost instantly the site was a hit among its users and grew exponentially across the world. As of August 2018, Facebook has more than two billion users monthly.

Facebook’s large user base has prompted them to expand operations and facilities across the world. South Asia’s young and technology-savvy population has encouraged Silicon Valley tech giants like Google and Facebook to invest in the region.

The recent scandal with Cambridge Analytica has unveiled Facebook’s unethical practices of user data storage outside of the host country. Their latest effort to combat fake news comes at the heels of intense public and government scrutiny for their inaction during the 2016 Presidential Election foreign hacking scandal.

Facebook has been heavily criticised for its inaction during the 2016 Presidential Elections when alleged foreign actors manipulated users by spreading misinformation.

Analysis 

The coming election is expected to be a close fought battle between Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the opposition Congress Party and its regional allies. Last week, Facebook said it was introducing stricter rules for political advertisements in India.

“We are committed to fighting the spread of false news on Facebook, especially ahead of the 2019 General Election campaign season,” Manish Khanduri, Facebook India’s news partnership head, said in the statement. The latest move to strengthen the fact-checking programme is aimed at verifying the accuracy of stories and preventing the spread of hoaxes.

Five new partners, including the India Today Group, a leading local media house, have been added to Facebook’s fact-checker network, taking the total number to seven, the statement said. The programme has been broadened to cover services in more Indian languages so that it will now cover English and five local languages, the statement added. India is Facebook’s largest market by users, and its WhatsApp messaging service has more than 200 million users in the country thanks to the advent of cheap mobile data and increasing penetration of smartphones.

Aside from concerns over misuse of social media for political purposes, there has also been criticism over the spread of false, incendiary messages that have fanned communal tensions and sparked mob violence. Last year, after a series of lynchings, were incited by messages sent on its service, WhatsApp reduced the number of people or groups that a message could be forwarded to at one time, cutting it to five from 20 previously. WhatsApp has since moved to make that its norm worldwide.

Facebook’s main rival in India, Alphabet Inc’s Google, has also conducted scores of workshops across the country to train journalists to verify the news. Facebook had earlier set up "war rooms" on its Silicon Valley campus to quickly repel efforts to use the social network to meddle in the US and Brazilian elections. Teams at Facebook have been honing responses to potential scenarios such as floods of bogus news or campaigns that trick people into falsely thinking they can cast ballots by text message, according to executives.

Facebook has partnered with non-profit organisations to bolster election integrity efforts outside the US and has been meeting with other technology companies to coordinate the sharing of information about election meddling efforts spanning social media platforms. Facebook has also said it has started working with political campaigns to improve staff online security practices, such as requiring more than just a password to access an account.

Assessment 

Our assessment is that Facebook is trying to keep misinformation away from its platform but is struggling to find a sustainable method to do so. The company came under heavy scrutiny after the Cambridge Analytica scandal came to light and it has been doing everything in its power from losing users. We believe that domestic Indian users will try to use Facebook once again before the 2019 General Elections to spread misinformation. However, we also feel that they may employ more covert tactics to avoid raising any red flags in Facebook’s new “war room”.

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