Facebook goes after fake news in Kenya ahead of election
Facebook has started educating Kenyans online on how to spot fake news.
The giant social media site on Monday rolled out a tool that can be accessed by users at the top of their news feeds.
“When people click on the tool at the top of their News Feed, they will see more information and resource in the Facebook Help Center, including tips such as checking the web address, investigating the source and looking for other reports on the topic,” wrote Facebook.
7 MILLION FACEBOOK USERS IN KENYA
The tool will be shown to the seven million people who use Facebook on a monthly basis in Kenya.
Ebele Okobi, Director of Policy for Facebook Africa, said, “We take fighting fake news issues seriously, because people want to see accurate information on Facebook. We’ve developed a three-part strategy to stop the spread of misinformation: disrupting the economic incentives for the spammers who attempt to distribute false news, building new products, and helping people better identify false news and report it.”
The company has urged Kenyans to report any information or account that violates the policies listed on its Community Standards page so that it can review and remove the inappropriate content.
“We detailed efforts (to combat fake news) in a comprehensive blog post in April. They include reducing financial incentives for bad actors, taking action against fake accounts, applying machine learning to help limit spam and reducing the posts people see that link to low-quality web pages,” wrote Facebook.
