Facebook's Fact checking mechanism

In my perspective, I believe that Facebook’s “fact checking mechanism” is a good move to somewhat prevent falsified information to be spread out to the general public; however, it has flaws and I disagree with adopting this mechanism.

First of all, the logic of the “fact checking mechanism” needs to be reconsidered. The “fact checking” system will be triggered when a story shared on its site is flagged by users as “fake”. The story would be then checked by third party “fact checkers” such as Associated Press or ABC News. Readers of the story consider truthfulness differently as their beliefs and attitudes towards information are shaped and varied by their values and world views. Even though the piece of story will later be submitted to third-party “checkers” who are reliable and can validate the facts from the fakes, the “trigger” of the mechanism is illogical and misleading to start with. In this way, people holding different values and beliefs will flag different pieces of story, and eventually there is possibility that every piece of story will be “flagged” at least once by Facebook users.

In addition, the mechanism damages the Facebook brand. Facebook started as a place where people can engage and connect with friends, make new friends, or even find lost friends. It is a platform to socialize and network. The added benefit of sharing stories and news is designed to be a tool to show other people your belief and what kind of person you are. However, this war for fighting against fake facts is turning Facebook to a battle field, and people sharing would slowly stop sharing posts or stories because they are afraid what they shared might later be marked as “fake”. As soon as people on Facebook stop sharing, connection between people will eventually be broken. Started as connecting tool that pulls people closers, the fact checker will push people further away from each other.

A better way that Facebook should adopt to prevent the appearance of fake facts, and at the same time keep its users connected is pay news organizations in exchange for featuring trusted and reliable content. Though it could be expensive, it is worthwhile if Facebook doesn’t want its brand to be damaged – it would be more expensive to “fix” a brand. In this way, not falsified information will be spread to the general public, and Facebook users could enjoy the benefit of reading accurate news faster and more convenient. The users will know it’s accurate because they are reading contents from trustworthy news press. And they will save the time determining whether they should “flag” a piece of information fake or continue reading but secretly suspect if the information were fake. To conclude, purchasing content from reliable news organization will make user’s information-gathering experience more effective and efficient.