Facebook analyzes user reputation, says newspaper | Social networks

Facebook assesses user reliability in an internal effort to prevent the growth of fake news, according to the American newspaper The Washington Post. The measure started last year, with a system that analyzes the actions of the profiles and assigns a level of confidence on a scale of zero to one, based on the sharing of false news. With the initiative, the social network tries to prevent lying information from going viral on the web.

Through algorithms, the platform also monitors which users tend to notify inappropriate content and which publications are considered safe by them. These data are used as sampling to define a reputation parameter. Analysis changes, at least in their initial phase, do not affect resources or the way users interact with each other.

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Facebook evaluates the reputation of users to fight fake news Photo: Luciana Maline / dnetcFacebook evaluates the reputation of users to fight fake news Photo: Luciana Maline / dnetc

Facebook evaluates the reputation of users to fight fake news Photo: Luciana Maline / dnetc

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Facebook product manager Tessa Lyons is responsible for reducing the distribution of fake messages and says the company's focus is on opposing fake news. "It is not uncommon for people to indicate that something is false simply because they disagree with a fact or intentionally disparage a particular publisher," says Lyons. An example of this behavior could be noted with the Twitter account Sleeping Giants, which suggested to followers to challenge conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his website, Infowars. With the large number of complaints, both Jones' page and his website have been banned from Facebook.

The reputation for crebidility, however, will not be an absolute indicator for classifying a profile as an exclusive breeder of fake news or misleading currents. That is, there will be no unified evaluation, according to the product manager. The algorithms investigate trends, but they cannot predict the user's impulses in the face of content, nor even know how he was convinced to act that way. The analysis serves as an investment to define behaviors and understand the propensity of this type of publication and, thus, to prevent certain shares from gaining strength.

"One of the parameters we use is how people interact with articles. If someone reports a fake story and it is recognized as such by our team, we can evaluate future news better than someone who provides us with false feedbacks on articles classified as true", said Tessa Lyons.

Even without clarifying too much criteria for the evaluation and approach, the attitude shows Facebook's investment in a new approach on the subject. After receiving criticism, alleging that false news influenced the outcome of the American elections, the company became more sensitive to the issue. There is even concern about the growing number of false and duplicate accounts, often used to spread incorrect ideas and damage the image of people.

In Brazil, the social network recently launched a service to check news in partnership with Agencia Lupa and the site Aos Fatos. The initiative was developed to prevent the reproduction of lying messages during the electoral period.

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