Straight from Facebook: How to spot fake news on coronavirus

MANILA – Facebook on Monday urged Filipinos to share only verified information on COVID-19, as it warned against fake news on the platform.

The Philippines is under a state of public health emergency and Luzon, home to half its 100 million population is on lockdown, forcing people to stay at home, driving social media use.

A social media user has the responsibility to "reduce the spread of misinformation by ensuring we only share information that we’ve verifies to be true," Facebook Philippines said in a statement. 

Here are a few simple steps to check the veracity of COVID-19 information on Facebook feed:

INSPECT THE POST 

False news items tend to have sensational and “attention grabbing” headlines, Facebook said. It sometimes use excessive exclamation points and overly dramatic headlines with shocking claims, it said. 

TAKE NOTE OF URLS

Some dubious sites imitate legitimate ones by replacing “0” with “o,” the social media platform said. To verify, users can open another window and proceed directly to the real website of the source to see if the post is using an altered URL.

INVESTIGATE THE SITE

Social media users can also verify information by checking the author’s name, Facebook said. Is the person a credible news source? Facebook also offers an “About” section for organizations to help users learn more about pages.

SPOT INCONSISTENCIES

Weird formatting, inconsistencies in the date and timeline of the story, awkward layout and misspellings are considered red flags and are often observed in fake news sites since they do not pay attention to details, Facebook said. 

Be skeptical of photos and videos that obviously looked altered, it said.

TAKE NOTE OF EXPERTS

Resource persons with undisclosed names and were written as “a top expert” could be an indication of a false news story, the platform said. 

COMPARE WITH OTHER STORIES

Do a quick sweep of other news sources and check data points with credible sources such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Department of Health (DOH). The story is more likely to be accurate of multiple credible sources are reporting it, Facebook said. 

GET THE LATEST FROM HEALTH AUTHORITIES

To get legitimate and accurate information, users are advised to visit the following official pages:

1. DOH 
2. DOH’s official Facebook page
3. WHO 
4. WHO Philippines 

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Facebook to pay 'subset' of news tab publishers

SAN FRANCISCO, United States - Facebook said Monday it plans to pay only a portion of the publishers whose stories appear in a news "tab" set to launch in the weeks ahead.

Facebook recently confirmed plans for a News Tab that will be edited by seasoned journalists, in a departure from its longstanding practice of letting algorithms dictate a user's experience.

A human team will select relevant, reliable breaking and top news stories.

"The number of publishers included in the news tab will grow over time," Facebook spokeswoman Mari Melguizo said in response to an AFP inquiry.

"To ensure we're including a range of topic areas, we'll start by paying a subset of publishers who can provide a steady volume of fact-based and original content."

A Wall Street Journal report earlier Monday said Facebook planned to pay about a quarter of the estimated 200 news organizations whose articles will be featured.

The tab will be separate from the trademark news feed at Facebook that displays updates and content from people's friends, according to the California-based online social network.

Aside from human-curated top news, sections of the tab will rely on algorithms to figure out a user's interests based on "signals" such as pages followed, interactions with online news or subscriptions to publications.

"Our goal with the News Tab is to provide a personalized, highly relevant experience for people," Facebook head of news partnerships Campbell Brown told AFP when the coming feature was revealed.

However the majority of stories people see will be determined by software, according to Brown.

Facebook Watch already allows users to peruse news shows funded by the social network and other on-demand online content.

Facebook has launched an array of initiatives to support or bolster journalism in recent years as social media has been under intense pressure to avoid becoming a tool to spread misinformation.

Earlier this year Facebook co-founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said he wanted "to make sure that to the extent that we can, we're funding as much high-quality journalism as possible."

The move comes with online platforms Facebook and Google dominating the market for online advertising, making it harder for traditional news organizations to gain traction in digital. The two internet giants have unveiled several initiatives aimed at helping the news industry and professional journalism.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Instagram to ditch chronological user feed for 'interest' based one

Facebook Inc.'s picture-sharing app Instagram said it is reshuffling feeds to display curated content that users would 'care' about first.

The sequence of posts would be based on the likelihood of interest in the content, the user's relationship with the person or timeliness of the post, Instagram said in a blog post.

On an average, users miss 70 percent of their feeds, Instagram added.

Instagram is the latest addition to the growing list of social media platforms reorganizing user feed to draw better attention from users.

Twitter Inc, in February, jumped on the feed customization bandwagon and let go of uniformly displaying tweets in reverse chronological order.

Facebook's feed also displays content in a similar algorithmic fashion based upon user interests.

The widely used photo-sharing app's decision to move away from its time-based feed could rid it of one prime feature - showing real-time content.

Technology blogger Techcrunch argues that users would have to worry about making their posts good enough to be chosen by the algorithm or their posts could be de-prioritized.

Instagram said the change in the feed for users would roll out in the coming months.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com