Facebook today has announced that it is expanding fact-checking for photos and videos to all its 27 partners in 17 countries around the world. The company says that this will help identify and take action against more types of misinformation, faster.
Similar to the process involved for Articles, Facebook has built a machine learning model that uses various engagement signals, including feedback from people on Facebook to identify potentially false content. The company will send photos and videos to fact-checkers for their review who have expertise in 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.
Fact-checkers can assess the truth or falsity of a photo or video by combining these skills and using other methods such as research from experts, academics or government agencies. As Facebook gets more ratings from these fact-checkers, it will get the chance to improve the accuracy of its machine learning model. It is also leveraging other technologies to better recognize false or misleading content. Facebook categorizes false photos and videos into three categories; Manipulated or Fabricated, Out of Context, and Text or Audio Claim.