, Columnist
Facebook, Keep the Fact-Checkers in Their Place
It's a mistake for the social network to fight fake news by outsourcing the vetting of news stories to fact checking groups
Wrong answer.
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Facebook has detailed its plan for combating fake news. It will effectively outsource the fact-checking of news stories flagged by users as possibly fake to third-party groups that should, at a minimum, be signatories to a code developed at the Poynter Institute, a Florida-based journalism training organization. But by making a small group of vetters the arbiters of "truth," Facebook undermines its own impartiality and may open the way for censorship on social networks.
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