Facebook today announced the launch of its third-party fact-checking program in Bangladesh as a part of its ongoing integrity efforts to scale back the spread of misinformation and improve the standard of the news people find online.
Facebook will partner with BOOM, which has been certified by the Poynter Institute’s non-partisan international fact-checking network, said a handout here.
Starting today, BOOM will review and rate the accuracy of stories on Facebook, including photos and videos in Bangladesh.
When third-party fact-checkers rate a story as false, it’ll appear lower within the news feed, significantly reducing its distribution.
“We know that folks want to ascertain accurate information on Facebook and that we are excited to announce the continued growth of our third-party fact-checking program through our partnership with BOOM for Bangladesh. We believe that with this fact-checking program, we will help build a more informed community and appearance forward to exploring more opportunities to expand this program locally,” said Anjali Kapoor, Facebook’s News Partnership Director of APAC.
This program is in line with Facebook’s three-part framework to enhance the standard and authenticity of stories within the News Feed. When third-party fact-checkers write articles a few pieces of content, Facebook will show these in related articles immediately below the story within the news feed. Page admins and other people on Facebook also will receive notifications if they struggle to share a post or have shared one that’s been determined to be false, empowering people to make a decision for themselves what to read, trust, and share.
“BOOM is delighted to expand our fact check operation into Bangladesh, with a fanatical team on the bottom, where we’ll debunk online misinformation on topics from health and medicine to current affairs. Fact-checking is at the core of what we do and that we are hopeful that with this effort, readers in Bangladesh will get the knowledge they need to make informed decisions and be ready to better identify factual news and knowledge online,” said GovindEthiraj, Founder-Editor of BOOM.
In addition to third-party fact-checking, Facebook also supports efforts to empower people with digital and news literacy skills to make a decision for themselves what to read, trust, and share. It does so by promoting news literacy programs globally and sharing tips to assist spot false news and informing people with more context about the posts they see in News Feed, consistent with the discharge.
In Bangladesh specifically, Facebook partnered with Banglalink for the second time earlier this year to launch a digital literacy program – Internet 101.
