Fact-checking initiative gets Facebook nod

San Francisco, June 22: Facebook has announced to expand its fact-checking programme to new countries that aims to fight spread of fake news on its platform. The social media giant now has the fact-checking programme running in 14 countries and plans to scale to more countries by the end of the year. “These certified, independent fact-checkers rate the accuracy of stories on Facebook, helping us reduce the distribution of stories rated as false by an average of 80 per cent,” Tessa Lyons, Product Manager at Facebook, said in a blog post on Thursday. In India, Facebook already is in partnership with a Mumbai-based fact checking organisation called Boom. Like other Facebook fact-checking partners, Boom is certified through the International Fact-Checking Network, a non-partisan international fact checking network at Poynter. Facebook has also expanded its test to fact-check photos and videos to four countries. Machine learning is helping Facebook identify duplicates of debunked stories. (IANS)