As part of its ongoing efforts to combat misinformation on its platform, Instagram has announced that it is expanding its fact-checking program globally to allow fact-checking organizations around the world to assess and rate misinformation on its platform. As part of the plan, the company on Monday said it is working with fact-checkers around the world to help identify, review and label bogus posts.
In an official blog post explaining its stance, the company said: “Today’s expansion is an important step in our ongoing efforts to fight misinformation on Instagram. Photo and video based misinformation is increasingly a challenge across our industry, and something our teams have been focused on addressing”.
The company further said that once such false or partly-false posts are detected, it will not only reduce its distribution organically, but also label it as a potential source of fake news so as to warn people about it. “When content has been rated as false or partly false by a third-party fact-checker, we reduce its distribution. In addition, it will be labeled so people can better decide for themselves what to read, trust and share”, said the company.
Instagram says it uses a combination of community feedback and software algorithm to determine which content should be sent to fact-checkers for review. “Earlier this year, we added a ‘False Information’ feedback option, and these reports, along with other signals, help us to better identify and take action on potentially false information”, said the company. Today’s expansion is an important step in the ongoing efforts from social media giants to fight misinformation on their respective platforms, so it will be interesting to see if it will have the desired effect.
