Facebook's problem with fake news is real, and it's not going to stay put to let this continue. The social giant is taking actions to protect the integrity of its platform.
In has been common for Facebook to be the source for spreading fake news and hoaxes. In its post on April 13th, 2017, the company said that "this event was off the charts." Using fake or "dummy" accounts, people can spread those words without affecting their real identity.
And as a matter of fact, there are even people that sell thousands of fake accounts for just a few dollars.
"We've found that when people represent themselves on Facebook the same way they do in real life, they act responsibly," said Facebook's security team. "Fake accounts don't follow this pattern, and are closely related to the creation and spread of spam."
To avoid such annoying incident, Facebook is introducing some improvements to its security and integrity systems in order to make things easier to monitor suspicious accounts as well as the spread of fake news.
"We've made improvements to recognize these inauthentic accounts more easily by identifying patterns of activity - without assessing the content itself."
As a start, the changes have enabled Facebook to purge more than 30,000 inauthentic accounts in France. The country was chosen because of the French presidential election, also also due to past fierce criticism for the network's role in the proliferation of "fake news" during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
As the updated security system is released worldwide, Facebook is expecting to increase that number.
Adding up to Facebook's previous efforts to battle fake news on its platform, the company has also started inserting advisory popups in users' News Feed in 14 countries, explaining how to spot fake or "false news." It has also started eliminating botnets from inflating certain posts with fake likes as a way to trick its algorithms to put more importance to them.
Facebook's changes to its security and integrity pose risks to numerous accounts, including those that are legitimate. Since Facebook uses algorithms, accounts can accidentally be caught if they meet certain criteria. This is what Facebook needs to address.
Furthermore, the company also needs to be transparent about the accounts it sees as fakes because it can affect democracy and free speech.