Here’s How Facebook, Google Plan to Combat Fake News in France (NASDAQ:FB) (NASDAQ:GOOG)

Facebook Inc

Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) and Google will work with news organizations in France to combat fake news ahead of the upcoming presidential election campaign later this year.

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The social media giant is teaming up with eight French media companies to fact check and filter news articles that have been reported by users, according to a report from The Verge.

Both Facebook and Google were criticized for allowing fake news to spread during the US presidential election.

What Facebook is going to do?

Le Monde, a daily afternoon newspaper in France and one of Facebook partners, said that the social media company is building a system that will allow users to report fake articles on its platform.

If a story is reported as false, it will be sent to a portal for fact checking. All eight media companies will have access to that portal, according to Le Monde.

After fact checking, if at least two of those media companies confirm the article as false, the content will be flagged as disputed in Facebook’s News Feed. Users will see a warning before sharing those disputed articles. According to Le Monde, the system will block advertising against the article.

In addition to Le Monde, other media companies include Agence France-Presse (AFP), France Télévisions, BuzzFeed, Global Voices, and Les Echos.

What will Google do?

First Draft Coalition is a network of more than 30 news and technology companies to tackle fake news and improve the quality of information on social media.

With the help of the Google News Lab, the coalition launched CrossCheck initiative to allow users to submit questions and gather information from 16 French media partners, Venture Beat reported.

Facebook said that it will support the initiative.

The search engine giant, owned by Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG), will help the French people “make sense of what and who to trust in their social media feeds, web searches, and general online news consumption,” said David Dieudonné, Google’s News Lab lead in France.

“With combined expertise from across media and technology, CrossCheck aims to ensure hoaxes, rumors and false claims are swiftly debunked, and misleading or confusing stories are accurately reported,” Dieudonné added.

French media outlets have also launched their own initiatives to tackle fake news. For example, Le Monde newspaper has compiled a list of more than 600 websites deemed to be unreliable. The left-leaning newspaper Libération is also building a similar database of false stories.

The first round of France’s presidential elections will be held in April, with the second round scheduled for May.

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