Facebook partners Dubawa ‘to tackle fake news’

Facebook has partnered with Dubawa, a fact-checking website, to help assess the accuracy of news and reduce the spread of misinformation.

According to a statement released on Monday, the partnership is as a result of the recent launch of Facebook’s “third-party fact-checking programme”.

The programme is designed to improve the quality of news people find on the platform, using feedback from the social media giant’s online community.

This serves as one of the many signals it uses to raise potentially false stories to fact-checkers for review.

The programme also targets third-party fact-checkers who write articles about a news story, which Facebook will show in “related articles” immediately below the story in news feed.

As an added measure, local articles will be fact-checked alongside the verification of photos and videos.

If a fact-checking partner identifies a story as false, Facebook will show it lower in news feed, significantly reducing its distribution.

Commenting on the partnership, Akua Gyekye, Facebook’s public policy manager, Anglophone West Africa, said: “With this new partnership, we aim to build on the work we already started in Nigeria.

“Nigeria is important to us and we’re committed to taking our responsibility seriously in tackling the spread of false news.

“Dubawa is a platform that has distinguished itself in cross-checking news stories and presenting the facts to the public, leaving them to draw their own conclusions.

“This forms part of the work we are doing, and that is why we have decided to partner with them.”

Dubawa is an initiative of Premium Times Center for Investigative Journalism (PTCIJ).