Fact-checkers have taken on an increasingly prominent gate-keeping role in determining what qualifies as credible information in the age of social media, when anyone with a computer can ostensibly be a “publisher.” Now, with the coronavirus pandemic resulting in widespread anxiety around the country, conditions are ripe for misinformation to spread, which has increasingly put a strain on the fact-checkers responsible for stemming the tide of false conspiracies.
In recent years, fact-checking has evolved from a niche, in-house process used by journalists, institutions and writers to a budding industry, which has forged an important partnership with Facebook to help stem the flow of misinformation on the social media platform. Facebook launched their third-party fact-checking program in December 2016, following criticism of the platform being used to spread false or misleading content during the last presidential election. Under the program, Facebook uses an algorithm to spot potentially false news, which is then forwarded to one of their fact-checking partners who either verifies the truthfulness of the content or flags it as false. Facebook has nine fact-checking partners in the U.S., including several news publishers (AP, Reuters, USA Today) and several established fact-checking organizations (Factcheck.org, Lead Stories, PolitiFact).
While Facebook initially ramped up their partnerships with these groups due to the upcoming presidential election, the coronavirus has quickly become the focal point of misinformation flowing on the web. Several of the recent “hoax alerts” featured on Lead Stories demonstrate the type of coronavirus misinformation fact-checkers are up against:
A Dog Vaccine Can NOT Be Used To Inoculate People Against Coronavirus
Soap And Hand Sanitizer Can't Be Used to Kill Coronavirus Inside Your Body
There Is NO Evidence China Created, Then Unleashed Coronavirus As Bioweapon
In a world where we’re used to having whatever information we desire at our fingertips, it can be unsettling to confront as many unknowns as there are in the battle against coronavirus. In this environment of incomplete information, it is all the more important to view new information with a critical eye and, when necessary, consult the professional fact-checkers.