{"id":285132,"date":"2017-01-16T08:04:23","date_gmt":"2017-01-16T08:04:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=285132"},"modified":"2017-01-16T08:04:23","modified_gmt":"2017-01-16T08:04:23","slug":"facebook-to-tackle-fake-news-in-germany","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2017\/01\/facebook-to-tackle-fake-news-in-germany\/","title":{"rendered":"Facebook to tackle fake news in Germany"},"content":{"rendered":"
Facebook is introducing new tools in Germany to help combat the spread of fabricated news stories.<\/p>\n
The world’s largest social network said it would enable German users to flag potentially false stories.<\/p>\n
The stories will then be passed to third-party fact-checkers and if found to be unreliable, will be marked in users’ news feeds as “disputed”.<\/p>\n
It is the first major expansion of the fake news features since Facebook announced tests in the US in December.<\/p>\n
“Last month we announced measures to tackle the challenge of fake news on Facebook,” the company said on Sunday in a German-language statement.<\/p>\n
“We will put these updates in place in Germany in the coming weeks.”<\/p>\n
Facebook has been widely criticised after some users complained that fake news had influenced the US presidential election.<\/p>\n
German government officials have expressed concern that misinformation on the internet could influence the country’s parliamentary election this year.<\/p>\n
Last week, the social news site Buzzfeed found Facebook pages were publishing false stories about German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is seeking re-election.<\/p>\n
German Justice Minister Heiko Maas has also repeatedly warned about fake news on Facebook, and called on the firm to respect the country’s defamation laws, which are stricter than in the US.<\/p>\n
In the UK, MPs are set to question executives from Facebook, Google and Twitter about fake news amid fears it is undermining democracy, according to a report in the Sunday Telegraph.<\/p>\n