Re:Baltica’s fact-checking and social media research lab Re: Check today became Facebook’s official fact-checking partner.
Facebook is actively growing its capacity in the fight against disinformation and is working worldwide with independent third-party fact-checkers like Re: Check. These partners are certified by the International Fact-Checking Network, which is an independent body free from political influence.
When a fact checker flags that a story is false, the Facebook algorithm significantly reduces the reach of the story. This stops the falsehoods from spreading and reduces the number of people who can see it. Facebook pages and websites that repeatedly share disinformation will also see their reach reduced and their ability to monetize and advertise removed. When a post is flagged as false, Facebook also alerts the people who see it or try to share it that the post is flagged as false.
“We’re happy to launch our third-party fact-checking program in Latvia and Estonia, and to expand it in Lithuania with Re:Baltica and Delfi. Fighting false news is a responsibility we take seriously, that’s why we are constantly working on ways to help stop the spread of misinformation on our platform.”
– said Jacob Turowski, head of Public Policy for Baltic Countries and Poland.
Currently, the international fact-checking network already has more than 55 partners that work in over 45 languages worldwide.
“The task of Re:Check is to ensure that in the era of social media people can access true information and facts. We verify whether officials, opinion leaders, various organisations’ statements or popular posts in social networks are true. We are delighted to become part of this team, so we can do even more,”
said Evita Puriņa, editor of Re:Check.
Since the launch in mid-2019, Re: Check has published more than 70 articles, and the project has also become a member of the international fact-checking network IFCN and has been well received by the audience.
During the last few weeks, in this difficult time, we have been actively working to uncover the COVID-19-related disinformation. You can find all the articles here: https://rebaltica.lv/recheck/ They are in Latvian and Russian.
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