If Facebook truly wants to stamp out fake news, it should fund an in-house group of fact-checkers, Mantzarlis has argued. Facebook executives reject that idea. Security chief Alex Stamos warned earlier this month that a technology company in charge of the facts would create a “Ministry of Truth," referring to the propaganda machine in George Orwell’s novel "1984."
There may be another reason, Mantzarlis said: Facebook doesn’t want to take direct responsibility for the information on its platform because it would be riskier and more expensive to hire and train all the people needed to take on the challenge properly. There’s a competitive advantage to outsourcing it to people, paid by other companies, who fact-check for a living.
“They’ve repeatedly clung to this idea that they’re not a media organization, and maybe it gets harder to argue that if you get fact checkers on your staff,” he said.
Facebook said it plans to provide further updates on progress before the end of the year, and start communicating more frequently with partners in 2018.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.