In the world of fake news, election hacking, false advertisements, and internet schemes of all sorts it is certainly a time that we must be more careful now than ever. As a whole we are not a very smart or aware society when it comes to the information we consume. We are very easily deceived, and it seems as if we are always hearing stories about those that were deceived in the worst types of ways.
Facebook seems to be one of the biggest platforms for deception. Sheryl Sandberg, the Chief Operating Officer at Facebook testified before the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on September 5th, 2018. In her testimony she laid out the foundation for how Facebook is going to stop inauthentic information from being shared on Facebook.
One way to determine what information, both foreign and domestic, is authentic on Facebook is to see if it has been fact checked by one of Facebook’s third-party-fact-checkers. Facebook is now promoting new literacy and “providing people with more context around the news they see.” (Sandberg, pg. 4). Not only can you see if something has been fact checked but you can now see more information about shared articles, such as information about the publisher, or author, related articles, and even information about how the particular article made its way to Facebook.
In Senate hearing, Facebook pledges to replace “bad speech” with “alternative facts” – “we warn you if you’re about to share it, we warn you if you have shared it, and importantly, we show related articles next to that so people can see alternative facts.” https://t.co/IHsnofVfKl pic.twitter.com/pdnwcTvnB0
— Todd Thompson (@TTxtodd) September 7, 2018
While these are all important things to look for given that they are provided by Facebook, it is also important that you yourself don’t succumb to the deceiving tactics put out onto the internet. We have to be smart consumers of media and diligent about finding out what is true and what is not.
Seems like an age ago now, but here’s my take on yesterday’s Senate hearing with Facebook and Twitter.
Tbh, nothing came close to the analysis @DamianCollins gave me before it all began https://t.co/rb8TyEpMWH pic.twitter.com/E0RPWE5QKY
— Rowland Manthorpe (@rowlsmanthorpe) September 6, 2018
Dope read, Ashlyn. I like how you added in tips about how you can check validity using the affordances Facebook provides (e.g. 3rd-party fact checking). You also touched on being a smart consumer of media. This is something I included it in my article and I feel as though it is probably the most important thing for consumers to know. Overall very good FB breakdown