Combating Fake News on Facebook: Algorithmic and Human Solutions

This report examines the pervasive issue of fake news on Facebook, highlighting its impact on the platform and the broader societal landscape. It explores a range of potential solutions, including the utilization of advanced algorithms to detect and flag suspicious content, the importance of human editors in assessing news reliability and context, and the application of blockchain technology to create a verifiable history of information sources. The report emphasizes the need for a multi-faceted approach, combining technological advancements with human oversight, to effectively combat the spread of misinformation and maintain the integrity of the platform. It also discusses the importance of localizing efforts, crowd sourcing, and the need for effective training for human editors. The paper concludes by emphasizing that Facebook's network effect is a powerful tool, and that the effective regulation of the platform is of utmost importance in the current information age.

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Name of the Student
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Author Note

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Recommendations
Algorithm usage
Since, Facebook utilizes various IT platforms to provide their services, it becomes very
important that fake news is effectively controlled through the use of the latest technologies that
are available. Algorithmic guidelines can help to greatly solve the problems concerning the
social media platform. The basic idea is to device a series of algorithms through which a problem
solving mechanism can be created. Through this mechanism, the news from irrelevant or
questionable sources. This can only be possible through the better utilization of the IT teams.
Social media is being increasingly used to spread hatred across the world (Kshetri and Voas
2017). Very effective IT teams are sometimes being utilized by various organizations in order to
spread fake news. In some cases hackers are posting face news through the pages of some
reliable news agencies. Technology can help to develop better algorithms that can track news
sources, check the validity of news, understand and analyze the reliability of the sources and take
necessary actions against the detected content. Algorithms can also be used to warn various users
against the reliability of particular news sources.
The reliability of news in the present global situation has become an essential issues that
is affecting both the news agencies, sources and the readers and audiences alike. Internet as a
news sharing platform has become quite troublesome and suspicious over the last few years. It
becomes much important that the various aspects related to online news are regulated and
controlled more effectively than ever. Large scale political turmoil and even shift in powers have
been caused in the last few years solely based on fake news circulated over the internet (Shu et
al. 2017). Social media platforms contributed the largest share of fake news that circulated on the

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internet. Due to the greater mass accessibility provided by the social media portals. The news
were in most cases circulated in bulk shares through various facebook pages and individual
profiles (Allcott and Gentzkow 2016).
Utilizing better algorithmic elements can help to greatly reduce the spread of fake news
that is taking place through faceboook. The same machine-learning algorithm can be used that
are used in case of many email applications. The comment sections of various news portals can
be made to review the posts of the commenters. Specific commenters that breach security
standards can be subsequently blocked. Algorithms that can automatically block pages through
which repeated fake news are circulated also have to be employed. There are smart algorithms
that can effectively detect specific details like URL, domain name and structures (Tschiatschek
et al. 2017). News from these internet sources can be tracked and completely barred from being
posted in facebook. Currently such systems are available but effective optimization of the
existing systems are much required. Up gradation of the presently available systems can help
towards the complete optimization of the algorithmic process.
Human editors
Despite the other ways in which the content can be checked for issues through mainly
technological means, human editor are much required. Even if an algorithmic system for locating
and blocking suspicious and fake content, human guidance is of great value. This is mostly
because it will still obviously take a human to understand the significance of any particular news.
Individual trained employees can work in coordination with the other technological elements in
order to make Facebook more secure as a social networking platform (Tandoc Jr et al. 2018).
The main purpose of the human editors will be to effective assess the news content before it is
released on Facebook. The newsfeed has to be the primary focus for the trained human editors.

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However, skill development for such activities is much necessary. This is especially because the
human editors need to understand the context of the news and the attributes that can make them
either reliable or non-reliable.
In the opinion of various scholars, human brain functions better than the algorithms.
Hence, human intervention is more reliable than algorithmic activity. Thus, IT teams can be
variously used in order to effectively provide solutions to problems that have haunted Facebook
for quite some time. It is also important that human editors that are capable of understanding
multiple languages are utilized for this particular purpose (Nelson, Jacob and Taneja). However,
it will be better if human editors are employed in regards to most of the basic languages in which
a wide number of circulated fake news in many languages can be detected. Since, the problem in
regards to fake news have been highly localized concerning some of the cases, it is important
that local people are hired in order to tract the face news that can cause localized problems. This
will help to spread the process of effectively eliminating fake news to all corners of the world.
Elements such as crowd sourcing can be used to make the process more effective (Figueira and
Oliveira 2017). Crowd sourcing can be used to gather data from various service providers and
utilize the same towards reducing the circulation of fake news. Human input can greatly help to
tackle the forces that essentially affect the news portals and circulate fake news. It is important to
consider that the various forces are responsible for the spreading of fake news and are spread
across the globe. Human editing can be effective towards determining the more subtle spread of
fake news. For example there are a few news sources that spread fake news embedded within an
actual news. Editors can effectively separate the actual occurrences from the fake ones enabling
Facebook to provide information that has been effectively validated (Westlake). Hence, human
editors can help to tackle the challenges faced by Facebook from fake news sources in more

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ways than one. It is important that the training procedures are effectively done for employing
better editors.
Block Chains
Block chain technology is a relatively newer technological development that can be used
towards enhancing the prospects of elimination of fake news in the future. Block chain refers to
the usage of collected data about something from a significant amount of reliable sources. The
sources can be people that provide opinions about any particular matter. Block chain then uses
this data to create a historic data base of a content (Gonzalez and Schulz 2017). The content can
then be effectively reviewed keeping in perspective the data gathered from the various sources in
regards to the content. The validation of the content can be subsequently done with the help of
the data that have been gathered historically. Block chains can be effectively used in order to
tackle fake news circulated by the offshoot Facebook pages of political parties or other important
social groups. The systematic function of the block chain added to the fact that it considers
historic data to assess the significance of a news source can be used to detect suspicious news
sources.
Historic data can point towards the previous fake news that have been circulated from a
given source. Moreover, the opinions of the internet public in regards to the news that have been
circulated by the source can provide essential information in regards to the reliability of the news
that is provided by the particular source (Harrison, Anderson, and Albright 2017). This can be far
more effective than even using algorithms. Algorithms although can automatically block pages
through which repeated fake news are circulated also have to be employed. Moreover, smart
algorithms that can effectively detect specific details like URL, domain name and structures.
However, this is in regard to more recent fake news sources. However, there are also pages that

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have existed on the internet for a long time. If Facebook is considered there are a lot of such hate
pages that have not been previously judged on the basis of fake and potentially harmful content.
Hence, block chain mechanisms can be used to gather extensive data in regards to the specific
hate pages. The data can be assessed and evaluated on the basis of popular public opinion in
regards to the content that they provide. Moving forward, this data can be utilized towards
blocking a particular news source or page that have been found guilty of processing fake news
for longer periods of time. This phenomenon can also be referred to as the wisdom of the crowd.
The opinion of the world wide online population is given particular importance towards
addressing the reliability of news sources. Since everything will be documented, it will also be
easy to evaluate similar circumstances in the future (Spinney). Block chain is becoming an
effective new technology that can be used to enhance the effective detection of problematic news
sources.
Conclusion
Conclusively, it can be said that better technologies are available that can be used for
bringing a systematic end to the circulation of fake news. Since, Facebook can easily be said to
be the most important social media platform in the present times, the importance of the effective
regulation of the platform takes center stage. Facebook has been negatively utilized over the past
few years to generate hate and gather undue political mileage in the process. As the world
continues to be affected by various negative elements it becomes important that only the absolute
truth is reflected through the media platforms. The recommendations can be effective towards
eliminating the prospects of fake news for the times to come.

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