Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Facebook Will Start Fact-Checking Pictures, Videos (cnbc.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the review-efforts dept.

Facebook said Thursday that it will start fact-checking images and videos. "People share millions of photos and videos on Facebook every day. We know that this kind of sharing is particularly compelling because it's visual. That said, it also creates an easy opportunity for manipulation by bad actors," Facebook said in a blog post. CNBC reports: Edited photos and strong visuals were common among the posts by Russian agents attempting to interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential election and other global elections, according to examples released by members of Congress. Facebook has been ramping up fact-checking efforts and third-party human reviewers in recent months in an effort to protect future elections from foreign interference. The company has already detected what it called "coordinated inauthentic behavior" ahead of the midterm elections in November.

"Many of our third-party fact-checking partners have expertise evaluating photos and videos and are trained in visual verification techniques, such as reverse image searching and analyzing image metadata, like when and where the photo or video was taken," Facebook said. "Fact-checkers are able to assess the truth or falsity of a photo or video by combining these skills with other journalistic practices, like using research from experts, academics or government agencies."

58 of 116 comments (clear)

  1. Satire by RickyShade · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Will satire survive?

    1. Re:Satire by Pseudonym · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The current era, sadly, cannot be parodied.

      --
      sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
    2. Re:Satire by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Only if it pokes no fun at people for religious reasons. Or gender. Or racial. Or physical appearance. Or talent. Or nationality. Or dress. Or economic status. Or sports preference. Or dental hygiene. Or car they drive. Or phone preference. Or body piercings. Or tattoos. Or educational background. Or language spoken. Or relationship status.

      But political preference is still acceptable. As long as it does not make fun of those on the political left. Or center. Or center left. All others are fine, though!

      --
      Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
    3. Re:Satire by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      Of course not. When king becomes tyrannical, the first one to get the noose is the court jester.

    4. Re:Satire by JoeDuncan · · Score: 2

      Bah! We can still make fun of fat white conservative dudes! Do we REALLY need anyone else to mock?!? :P

  2. Re:About time by RickyShade · · Score: 1

    Hey hey hey! Don't try to make Bic Macs political! I'm a proud libcuck and I love Big Macs!

  3. Facts Considered Harmful by Kunedog · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Any unauthorized facts will be checked, and if found harmful to Democrats (and especially their midterm campaigns) will be promptly memory-holed.

    1. Re:Facts Considered Harmful by djinn6 · · Score: 1

      I think they will just fail. It takes serious detective work to figure out locations of photos, and Facebook's going to use that to fact check millions of photos posted daily?

      As for harmful to Democrats during election, that's even harder to tell. Lots of stuff that seems good from a liberal perspective actually triggers moderates and conservatives, like the whole transgender bathroom fiasco or shaming people for saying Merry Christmas. Do you allow news about those things or not?

    2. Re:Facts Considered Harmful by pgmrdlm · · Score: 1

      The CEO criminal of MacAfee, and also some drug lords were busted based on the location information contained in the pictures that were posted. The technology is already there for location verification. I can't see how a modified video/picture won't have some identifying proprieties that does not show it has been altered.
      Which brings up satire. You change a picture just to be funny. Will it get rejected?

      --
      Anonymous comments are as pathetic as the anonymous "sources" that contaminate gutless journalism from the New York Time
    3. Re:Facts Considered Harmful by reboot246 · · Score: 1

      The real question is, who is going to fact-check the fact checkers? Does anybody on either side really trust Facebook? They've proven that they're biased and greedy. What else are they guilty of that we don't know yet?

    4. Re:Facts Considered Harmful by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 2

      Most photos uploaded will have the geo location in the meta data.
      Wow that was easy again ...

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    5. Re:Facts Considered Harmful by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 1

      True! AP agrees with Democrats 100% of the time, whilst Pravda only agreed with the Politburo a balanced 97% of the time.

      --
      Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
    6. Re:Facts Considered Harmful by djinn6 · · Score: 1

      Sure, and it's super easy to spoof if you cared enough.

    7. Re:Facts Considered Harmful by Uberbah · · Score: 1

      Weekly Standard, headed by Bill Kristol, trust fund baby who has been full of shit on pretty much every subject he's ever spoke on.

    8. Re:Facts Considered Harmful by Uberbah · · Score: 1

      Oh, and the fascist Atlantic Council, headed by rabidly ant-Russian ideologues who have ties to CrowdStrike, the same firm that 'decided" that Russia hacked the DNC servers, based on shitty or no evidence.

    9. Re:Facts Considered Harmful by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      LOL. You think the Weekly Standard is biased to the right? There's a reason why it has the name the Neocon Standard among conservatives, and it's articles and founder are heavily given happy treatment by democrats in the US. Because the owner of the site, and many of the authors are never-trumpers and neocons. Those same neocons that were driven out by the Tea Party groups, and were welcomed with open arms by democrats and progressives.

      No, you probably don't know that. Why don't you go look up people like Hugh Hewitt, David Frum, or even Ken White(popehat), who sperged the fuck out screeching that "the republicans left me!" And started pushing anti-free speech policies at soon as they flipped. Once you're done that, go look up why the democrats are in the middle of a civil war, and are losing to the communists. I'll give you a hint, it's because the elected a leadership that's perfectly fine with those ideals.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    10. Re:Facts Considered Harmful by umghhh · · Score: 1

      It is not only modifications to the photo that can make a photo or a clip to be considered fake. If you leave context out the photo or a video maybe be authentic and fake at the same time. Descriptions of such material can also be done in such a way that the message they are part of can be considered false too. To refer to the history - during WWII both sides used photo material that they could find which often enough made the same material and different message being presented to (different) public. This came out only after research has been done on the subject. It has become more difficult to keep secrets as for instance Skripal case showed - yet how do you verify the work of police and secret services in this case when what they did is shifting through a mountain of material - a dedicate task force took months to do that in one particular case. I guess the result will be that fakes identification in this particular sense will be only the cases where material was altered technologically. So if I say the Russians gassed people in Idlib and show a photo of people with signs of chemical injuries it can be as true as the same photo with 'Turks did it' and one with 'Assad did it'. At the end Assad will be bombed of course but what is the truth and how come we to it?

    11. Re:Facts Considered Harmful by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      Cough, cough, the corporate democrats, the big business stooges, the multi-national whores, the slimy rotten pieces of shit best exemplified by Uncle Tom Obama, the Choom Gang Coward.

      Lets be honest, corporate Republicans are also not banned. The list of the actively shunned, The Greens, The Libertarians, Progressive Democrats, Independent Republicans, Peace Activists, well anyone who is anti corporate establishment and is not down with the rape and pillaging of the planet earth in this generation and basically fuck all future generations.

      The message to the rest of us, "I need my mega yacht, my mansion, my private jet, my super cars and all you fuckers who stand in my way can just, well, fucking die and that includes all future generations of humanity, I want it all now, total power, infinite greed". Brought to you by the dick bag who wanted to kick native people off their land because the piece of shit needed more land, more than anyone else, more than enough for an entire town but still not enough.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    12. Re:Facts Considered Harmful by dwillden · · Score: 1

      Your definition of neutral needs work. Politifact, factcheck and snopes are definitely not neutral. All three lean heavily to the left. The AP may actually be somewhat middle of the road but as the AP mostly leans left I doubt it. So if the Weekly Standard is right leaning, then at best it's L3 N1 and R1 but more likely L4 vs R1

      --
      I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
    13. Re:Facts Considered Harmful by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      What you mean is that reality has a left wing bias and any site that reflects that is therefore also biased.

      Give us an example of bias from any of these left leaning orgs.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    14. Re:Facts Considered Harmful by cyberchondriac · · Score: 1

      Who's vetting these 3rd party fact checkers? Is there a 3rd party for that? Having 3rd party "fact checkers" is not as straightforward as say, trusting a CA to vouch for a server certificate. Humans have biases.

      --

      Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
    15. Re:Facts Considered Harmful by Uberbah · · Score: 1

      That and the FBI never bothering to examine the DNC servers. I keep having to point out to Russiagaters that this should bother them most of all, as the old telnet handle from Vlad Pootie Poot himself could be right there, hanging out in an exploit buried in firmware, if only Mueller could get off his incompetent ass and subpoena them...

  4. Too late by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1

    More than three-quarters of all 18-34 yo FB users have removed FB from their cell phones.

    Day late.

    Dollar short.

    --
    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
  5. Competent audience required by cmcqueen1975 · · Score: 1
    Apparently many of the "average Joe" are apparently unable to discern between fact and fiction. As long as Facebook feels a need to do that for us, I reckon we're an intellectually weak society. I'd much rather see an education effort to teach the populace the necessary skills and discernment to know the difference between truth and lies.

    I suppose some lies are rather sophisticated, and it takes a concerted effort to dig through the facts to discover the truth. But a significant number of posts I see go by on Facebook are (what I think) obviously transparently wrong, but still shared and passed on as fact. Things like, "12:30 Aug 27th you will see two moons in the sky, but only one will be the moon. The other will be Mars. It won't happen again until 2287. No one alive today has ever witnessed this happening."

    1. Re:Competent audience required by djinn6 · · Score: 1

      Apparently many of the "average Joe" are apparently unable to discern between fact and fiction.

      Things like, "12:30 Aug 27th you will see two moons in the sky, but only one will be the moon. The other will be Mars. It won't happen again until 2287. No one alive today has ever witnessed this happening."

      How do you know people actually believe that? A lot of that sharing could be for humor. I know at least one troll that makes flat earth posts just for laughs.

      Besides, how do you know it's wrong? I'm going to guess that you trusted someone or something that told you Mars is much further away than the Moon, that they're set in their orbits and thus will never* become as bright as the Moon. Of course, you think the people you trust is trustworthy, but can you verify that?

      Now replace something that most people have direct knowledge of (Moon and Mars), with something that most people know nothing about except through news, like the Clinton email scandal or Trump Russian ties. Who should they trust? How do they know they are trustworthy?

      *Technically it's impossible to know whether this will happen. There could be a black hole traveling near the speed of light that would send Mars careening towards Earth.

    2. Re:Competent audience required by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Well,
      if you are old enough you should have watched Mars often enough ...
      However if you live in a city like NYC, you probably never have seen a planet or a star in the sky ... what do I know?

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  6. Re:About time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I think he was talking about eating them...

  7. Oh $hit... by Bodhammer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "Fact-checkers are able to assess the truth or falsity of a photo or video by combining these skills with other journalistic practices, like using research from experts, academics or government agencies."

    We are so fucked...

    --
    "I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
    1. Re:Oh $hit... by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 2

      We are so fucked...

      If by "We" you mean QAnon followers and their Infowars buddies, then yes, you are fucked.

      --
      Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    2. Re:Oh $hit... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      Here's the list of fact checking organisations:

      Associated Press
      Factcheck.org (Please use 'appeal' in subject line)
      PolitiFact
      Snopes.com
      The Weekly Standard

      Four neutral, and the Weekly Standard on the right. If one of them decides the content is fake there is no appeal. The Standard has already started abusing its power to censor left leaning publications.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    3. Re:Oh $hit... by Mashiki · · Score: 2

      I'm also going to point out to you, that Media Matters, the organization in question has a very long history of quote mining, and making fabrications in order to attempt "gotcha moments." Here's an example from the other day. Rush Limbaugh(like or hate him), says "And in this article, people are claiming that sharks were being dropped on land by hurricane Florence." Media Matters then reports this tongue-in-cheek moment where he's laughing his ass off, as "Rush Limbaugh reports, that sharks were falling from the sky. This is another blahblahblahblah." They've been doing this for decades. Oh yes, they've got a very long history of being among the worst abusers.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    4. Re:Oh $hit... by Bodhammer · · Score: 1

      No, I mean thinking, rational people with a brain. You're safe...

      --
      "I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
  8. Well considering by pgmrdlm · · Score: 1

    Most people I know(liberal/conservative) only post pictures of friends and families, pets, social events, vacations, or just personal shit. WHAT THE FUCK IS THE POINT of the Fact check. You saying I did not do a 40 mile bike ride, when I have posted my route, with pictures of where I stopped. Really? WTF

    --
    Anonymous comments are as pathetic as the anonymous "sources" that contaminate gutless journalism from the New York Time
    1. Re:Well considering by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 1

      Most people I know(liberal/conservative) only post pictures of friends and families, pets, social events, vacations, or just personal shit.

      Then they are very unlikely to be fact checked.

      WHAT THE FUCK IS THE POINT of the Fact check.

      To stop idiots from posting and reposting memes with misleading information and flat out lies that are nothing more than propaganda.

      --
      Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    2. Re:Well considering by ScentCone · · Score: 1

      To stop idiots from posting and reposting memes with misleading information and flat out lies that are nothing more than propaganda.

      As long as doing so doesn't hurt the politics FB supports. Those misleading memes and lies will sail right by the fact checkers who get paid by them.

      --
      Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
    3. Re:Well considering by 91degrees · · Score: 1

      I like your facebook friends. They seem like nice people.

      A lot of my facebook friends repost any old political crap they've seen that happens to support their prejudices. I mean they're my friends and it's ultimately harmless, but it would be nice if they hadle a little more introspection here.

    4. Re:Well considering by butzwonker · · Score: 1

      Apparently there are people who get their news from Facebook. I also find this hard to believe, but that seems to be the worry.

      Marking obviously false stories as false doesn't seem to harm. Although I guess in the end it doesn't matter, because the alternatives in the US also don't seem to briliant. If you get your news from TV channels in the US you're screwed anyway. Fox is not news and CNN & Co. is sensationalist fear mongering. You can get some news from them, but at the cost of having to endure annoying moderators, pointless live reporting and horrible exaggerations. If you get your news from "alternative media", on the other hand, then you will forever remain a poor uninformed schmuck, because these sites just copy&paste conspiracy theories from elsewhere and employ no journalists anyway.

      The bottomline is that in the US it's probably best to switch to print media and/or foreign news agencies/services if you really want to what's going on. Unless by "news" you mean "political opinion pieces, whether based on fact or not" like most people who complain about fact-checking and the media nowadays.

    5. Re:Well considering by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      To stop idiots from posting and reposting memes with misleading information and flat out lies that are nothing more than propaganda.

      You mean, it's not to control the discourse and tell people what to think? It's a very easy line to cross as one can see with sites like snopes or politifact can go out of their way to claim something is false, when a meme for example uses a single different word.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    6. Re:Well considering by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 1

      WHAT THE FUCK IS THE POINT of the Fact check.

      To stop idiots from posting and reposting memes with misleading information and flat out lies that are nothing more than propaganda.

      Except it won't be done that way. Leftist propaganda will be happily still passed along, just as it is now.

    7. Re:Well considering by pgmrdlm · · Score: 1

      I have a few that do that also. I ignore the political post's, and just look for the jokes or pictures.

      --
      Anonymous comments are as pathetic as the anonymous "sources" that contaminate gutless journalism from the New York Time
  9. OK no more lying about by bobstreo · · Score: 1

    your penis size, or your income. /s

    I guess BookFace wants to become Santa Claus

  10. Hold up ... by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

    ... I'm a photographer and the EXIF Data is stripped when I upload a photo.

     

    --
    It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    1. Re:Hold up ... by oldgraybeard · · Score: 2

      Probably so Facebook can assume copyright of the content so generously donated to them.

    2. Re:Hold up ... by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

      No.

      Because Facebook has to store the photos and they strip EXIF to make the files smaller.

      Which is a good thing.

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    3. Re:Hold up ... by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

      Maybe.

      I strip all EXIF from any photo that leaves any of my devices.

      About the only time I turn on location data for photos is in the Spring, taking pictures of blackberry blossoms.

      Later on, I can return to those spots, where the berries are extremely hard to find, once the bright white blossoms are gone.

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
  11. "unauthorized facts"? by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 1

    Any unauthorized facts will be checked

    Is that the new name of alternative facts?

    If you post factual information then people will be interested in knowing. If you posts a meme claiming some crazy conspiracy shit with absolute no factual backing then it's going to get taken down. Infowars isn't a news source.

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
  12. Goodbye common carrier status. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Since FB want to now be a censor, they are now responsible for EVERY piece of content. Enjoy the numerous lawsuits and criminal charges incoming, Zuck.

  13. Glad they are taking care of us by joe_frisch · · Score: 1

    It makes me feel so much better that a large corporation is going to determine truth vs falsehood of information.

    Actually it would be OK if they had a purely technical measure of whether or not images or videos had been manipulated.

  14. This is a great idea! by Aromipesa · · Score: 1

    Wow, I absolutely can't see how this could go wrong in any way whatsoever.

  15. Yes! Yes! Yes! by Mr_Silver · · Score: 1

    I look forward to the day I stop seeing people share the picture that claims that if you punch your PIN in backwards at an ATM then it alerts the police to the fact that you're being coerced into taking out money.

    Every single person who shares that picture clearly hasn't taken 5 seconds of brain time to consider what would happen if your PIN was, say, 1221.

    --
    Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
    1. Re:Yes! Yes! Yes! by ConceptJunkie · · Score: 1

      I try to calmly explain this whenever I see this one. Or the many completely bogus astronomy ones that get passed around. It doesn't help much but it helps.

      Besides we need to leave room for the real facts, like the fact that Hillary Clinton is clearly a lizard person. You can tell by the pixels.

      --
      You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
  16. Re:We asked liberals to call conservatives liars by umghhh · · Score: 1

    I would not call it globalism. To me it looks like one of these autoimmune illnesses - the body turns on itself.
    A human is not always wise and knowledgeable, although some are. In mass, humans are a blob of meat that lacks any intelligence, dignity and self restraint. You can steer it, sometimes it works but that is it. There is a system reason why groups of people are usually not smart. In India which has huge groups of less educated people using communication technology, the calls for lynch spread through whatsapp killed some innocent people. There are attempts to prevent people doing this on purpose or by accident. Some of these attempts (if not all) will be abused by politicians to silence persons less loyal to the party line than they should be. Some of these tools to fight fakes will be abused by companies to limit the image damage they could suffer if the truth about their activities become transparent to hordes of their customers. I am not sure what the solution may be. Thought and speech must be free or we have a problem. It requires careful users or people may die or 'only' suffer loss of their livelihoods etc Dose FB have a good solution? probably not.

  17. ok by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 1

    OK, as someone who normally despises conspiracy theories ... I give up.

    The whole "oh noes Russia" things was a false flag operation, to give Facebook et al a blanket excuse to go hog wild with their bias. "What choice do we have?"

    I didn't want to believe that ... I really didn't ...

  18. This is great by Davidsmith111 · · Score: 1

    This is a great news because it will help in the security of facebook also, i think it's a nice decision, also check out our post on https://todayonweightloss.com/

  19. crazy idea by Straumli+Perversion · · Score: 1

    I know this is far, far out there and all, but maybe it should be up to both the people posting the images or videos and/or the people viewing the images or videos to fact-check them. Or not.

  20. Fact check? More like censorship by four20_BlzItFgt · · Score: 1

    Facebook doesn't have the AI that is needed to "fact check". Their entire AI research lab is mediocre at best. Their so called "AI" couldn't even figure out that people were upset and voted Trump out of desperation. The same people that voted for Obama twice voted for twice. America's demographics didn't magically change in 4 years. Hilary was a shit candidate, and their "AI" didn't sense that. This is just a code word for our corporate overlords to censor content that jeopardizes their influence.

  21. Pacifier by thunderclees · · Score: 1

    If Facebook is going after pics it thinks are posted by Russian hackers what about the ones posted by hackers from China, Vietnam, Israel, etc?

    It was a nice way to slip in the Russian hacker thing. The DNC has been looking for Russian hackers since Hillary complained about them. One wonders why Hillary did this since she had a lot ob business dealings with Putin's Russia during here SOS stint so why would they want to hack her campaign?

    One would think the Russian hackers would want Hillary and friends to win since the Clinton's were so close to Putin. Doing highly paid speaking engagement and helping contract through the system in the US.

  22. Experts by Areyoukiddingme · · Score: 1

    "Many of our third-party fact-checking partners have expertise evaluating photos and videos and are trained in visual verification techniques..."

    I've seen a few 'shops in my time...

    Of all our ancient, crusty old memes, that one is suddenly and very literally relevant. Who'd have guessed?