The social giant Facebook and the microblogging platform Twitter have allied with more than 30 news and technology companies like the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN and others to improve the quality of information on social media.
The group is called the First Draft Coalition, an Alphabet-backed venture (Google News Lab) formed in June 2015 that wants to create a voluntary code of practice as an attempt to increase news literacy among social media users, and by launching a platform tailored specifically to verify the sources of information.
With this, the group hopes to eliminate fake and misinformation news that are common on the web and social media networks.
Facebook and Twitter joined the coalition because fake news have been a growing problem for them.
On August 2016 for example, Facebook has made a mistake when its algorithm made a fake news about Fox's anchor Megyn Kelly and posted it high up in its Trending Topics. Facebook has been one of the sources of users on the web in finding news, and the algorithms' mistake was because Kelly's bogus news was much talked about. Facebook which has 1.7 billion users each month, has been criticized by many for its role in spreading fake stories and misinformation.
The same goes for Twitter. With 140 million daily users, it's significantly smaller than the giant Facebook. But the microblogging platform is often a target by trolls and fake news publishers. Furthermore, Twitter is one of the few places on the web where breaking news, eyewitnesses and citizen journalism take place fast and fluent. For that concern, they're also a major source of bad or potentially misleading information.
The coalition has a great intention, benefiting everyone on the web. But initially, it still falls short in describing the steps it would do, or how it will reach when it sees a fake news. So at first, the group has no clear way to reverse the trend, at least yet.
Previously, Facebook has taken a huge step to end "bogus" news: it has increased the use of automation to select the most-talked about topics of the day for its popular "Trending" feature, as a way to reduce human bias. But what appeared to be a great strategy, came to be ineffective. Twitter in July also had removed posts from Islamic extremists glorifying their attacks.
What seemed to be the problem was because the nature of social media users that tend to share news and information they like, not because they say the actual truth.
Like for example, a gossip about a celebrity or jokes about high profile individuals can indeed break the news. People can spread the words out like wildfire, and to some other viewers, they receive the information thinking that they were actual information.
Facebook and Twitter, along with many news outlets on the web, have so far struggled to contain those bad and bogus information from spreading.
So what should be changed is the mindset of users. And if education is the key to solve this problem, the coalition has a long way to go. This won't be an overnight success, but the group is certain that they can solve this one out together.