The coalition will launch by the end of October a platform where members can validate dubious news reports, said Jenni Sargent, managing director of the First Draft News, which is behind the coalition.
Social networks unite with global newsrooms to take action against misinformation online firstdraftnews) September 13, 2016
First Draft, formed last year with the backing of Google, said at least 20 news organizations will form part of its partner network that will tackle online misinformation, create a code of practice and promote news literacy on social media.
“Today we are announcing the expansion of First Draft to include a new partner network of over thirty major news and technology organizations to tackle issues of trust and truth in reporting information that emerges online,’ Sargent said.
“Filtering out false information can be hard. Even if news organizations only share fact-checked and verified stories, everyone is a publisher and a potential source. We are not going to solve these problems over night, but we’re certainly not going to solve them as individual organizations.”
libtard news Facebook, Twitter join coalition to improve online news YahooNews meh already liberal cnnbrk
— 904 (@jmsmith904) September 14, 2016
Aside from Twitter and Facebook, joining the coalition are YouTube, The New York Times, The Washington Post, BuzzFeed News, CNN, ABC News (Australia), AJ+, ProPublica, Agence France-Presse, Channel 4 News, The Telegraph, France Info, Breaking News, Les Décodeurs, International Business Times UK, Eurovision News Exchange, SAM, Aljazeera Media Network, Reveal project, InVID project, Euronews, Sourcefabric, WITNESS, Amnesty International, European Journalism Centre, American Press Institute, International Fact Checking Network, and the Duke Reporters’ Lab.
The announcement on Tuesday comes amid the growing concerns over misinformation and hoaxes proliferating on social media networks, especially on Facebook, which boasts of about 1.7 billion users each month.
Following criticisms over the spread of fake stories, the world’s largest social media network introduced an automation that selects hot topics of the day in an effort to lessen bias, and has taken steps to help journalists in finding and distributing news stories more effectively.
“The network will help Facebook showcase the products, tools and services we have built for journalists but also ensure we are constantly learning about how to improve them based on feedback from newsrooms,” said Áine Kerr, Facebook’s journalism partnerships manager.
“We want to ensure we are building opportunities to learn from the industry and to ensure we continually hear their questions and feedback.”
Established in June 2015 through the support from Google News Lab, First Draft aims to raise the bar on online reporting and information sharing. It has worked with YouTube on many projects, especially on the verification of user-generated videos.
Twitter News Partnerships Manager Niketa Patel said the online social networking service is “thrilled to be a part of the First Draft Partner Network so that we can collaboratively shape best practices, ethical guidelines and tools when it comes to discovering and verifying eyewitness media.”
Last month, Twitter announced it removed more than 200,000 accounts as part of the intensified campaign against violent causes. The San Francisco, California-based company, which has about 140 million daily users, said the axed accounts have violated the rules that ban the promotion of terrorism and other violent acts.
