Facebook battles misinformation in US and abroad

By Barry Eitel

SAN FRANCISCO (AA) – Facebook has issued a report that includes the company’s most direct acknowledgement that it has become a combat zone for state-sponsored political misinformation campaigns.

The issue of “fake news” and propaganda battles on Facebook took over international headlines following the election of President Donald Trump in the United States last year, especially after some of the falsified articles posted to the site were linked to the Russian government.

However, this species of misinformation campaign is not unique to the 2016 U.S. elections -- similar dishonest propaganda has attempted to shift opinion using social media during major elections this year in the Netherlands and France.

The report was written by Facebook’s Chief Security Officer Alex Stamos as well as threat intelligence team members Jen Weedon and William Nuland.

“Our mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected,” the report said. “The reality is that not everyone shares our vision, and some will seek to undermine it — but we are in a position to help constructively shape the emerging information ecosystem by ensuring our platform remains a safe and secure environment for authentic civic engagement.”

To combat the rise of misinformation on Facebook, the company said that it is getting better at detecting the use of fake accounts to amplify a dishonest news story online. Facebook is also using machine learning to detect and remove accounts.

“In France, for example, as of April 13, these improvements recently enabled us to take action against over 30,000 fake accounts,” the report noted.