by Catherine Smith
Social media giant Facebook is partnering with the news agency Reuters to fact-check and verify news headlines, user-generated videos and photos, and other content in English and Spanish on its behalf. Adding a high-profile name to its worldwide roster of fact-checkers, Techcrunch reports.
Reuters has formed a new four-person fact-checking business that will work to verify videos and photos (ie. “deepfakes”), news headlines and more on Facebook and Instagram.
The team will focus on reviewing user-content, news headlines posted in English and Spanish. Its findings will be published on the Reuters blog, which as of Wednesday showed examples of fact-checking by the news agency dating back to February 2019. They will list the core claim and why it’s false, partially false, or true. “Facebook will then use those conclusions to label misinformation posts as false and downrank them in the News Feed algorithm to limit their spread,” TechCrunch reported.
“I can’t disclose any more about the terms of the financial agreement but I can confirm that they do pay for this service” Reuter’s Director of Global Partnerships Jessica April told TechCrunch about the deal with Facebook.
Reuters joins the list of US fact-checking partners that include the Associated Press, PolitiFact, Factcheck.org, and four others. Facebook offers fact-checking in over 60 countries, though often with just one partner like Agence France-Presse’s local branches, according to Techcrunch.
Reuters will have two fact-checking staffers in Washington D.C. and two in Mexico City. Reuters’ Global Head of UGC Newsgathering Hazel Baker said the fact-checking team could grow over time, as it plans to partner with Facebook through the 2020 election and beyond.
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Catherine Smith is a contributor to American Greatness
