The Facebook part of each breaking news cycle is pretty familiar to journalists: A story breaks, and it seems just a matter of time until a false or misleading bit of information appears on Facebook’s “trending” section or otherwise makes its way around the platform with alarming speed.
Facebook’s fake news problem, which the company initially downplayed, was on display during the 2016 election, when the platform was found to have enabled propaganda and profitable lies to spread to millions of people.
In theory, Facebook has taken steps to prevent this. They’re partnered with journalists at the Associated Press, FactCheck.org, and others to verify the truth of supposed news items on Facebook. When something doesn’t meet the journalists’ standards, that story gets a “disputed” tag.
But journalists working on behalf of Facebook told The Guardian that this “disputed” tag doesn’t do much. A year after these journalists began their partnership with the platform, they spoke to The Guardian out of concern that Facebook wasn’t serious about stopping disinformation.
“They have a big problem, and they are leaning on other organizations to clean up after them,” one journalist told The Guardian.
These journalists reportedly don’t have access to…
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