A Method for Social Media Companies to Address Fake News

A Method for Social Media Companies to Address Fake News

6 years ago
Anonymous $ZPWJA6-QD2

https://medium.com/@WStaton85/a-method-for-social-media-companies-to-address-fake-news-a67d6342767

Here is my proposition for how social media companies can attempt to combat fake news without censoring or banning anyone. I use Twitter as the example, but other companies could use this approach as well. This idea is only targeted at high-profile individuals who spread fake news — like Alex Jones, who was banned from many social media sites — it doesn’t abrogate the need for other approaches, like culling bot profiles.

Social media sites should partner with established and reputable fact-checking organizations (Politifact won a Pulitzer in 2009) to substantiate or disprove the claims of high-profile tweeters with histories of spreading lies and misinformation. Individuals become eligible to have their claims fact-checked once they reach a verified or similar status, and the claims do not have to be their own, so for example if a celebrity is retweeting fake news, that would still qualify as a reason to fact-check their account.