Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced new steps to counter fake news on the platform on Saturday, marking a departure from his skepticism that online misinformation is, as Barack Obama said this week, a threat to democratic institutions. As fake news takes over Facebook feeds, many are taking satire as fact Read moreThis summer Facebook fired the human team of curators who watched its “trending” news items, leaving its algorithm to sort links. Fake and misleading news proliferated further, and Facebook earned scorn for high-profile embarrassments, for instance the deletion of a Vietnam war photo deemed too graphic. On Thursday, Obama told reporters that the discrediting of news organizations and spread of misinformation threatened institutions. On Saturday, the CEO insisted fake news was still a marginal problem, echoing his previous remark that “more than 99% of what people see is authentic”.

Source: The Guardian November 19, 2016 18:00 UTC