What is fact checking

Fact checking is the act of checking factual assertions in a non-fictional text in order to determine the veracity and correctness of the factual statements in the text. This may be done either before or after the text has been published or otherwise disseminated.

Ante hoc fact-checking (fact checking before dissemination) aims to remove errors and allow text to proceed to dissemination (or to rejection if it fails confirmations or other criteria). Post hoc fact-checking, most often followed by a written report of inaccuracies, sometimes with a visual metric from the checking organization. Several organizations devoted to post hoc fact-checking, such as FactCheck.org and PolitiFact.

Facebook Extended Fact Checking to Photos and Videos

Facebook on Friday announced that it is extending fact-checking tools to photos and videos on its platform. These tools are already available for text and links on the social networking platform. FB works with independent, third-party fact-checkers to review articles published on the platform. It has now expanded its fact-checking tool for photos and videos to its 27 partners across 17 countries.

FB has three categories for fake photos and videos. Content which ‘Manipulated or Fabricated’ used with intent to deceive users. ‘Out of context’ contents are photos and videos which are authentic but misinterpreted. The last category includes photos and video which have false text or audio.

How Facebook’s fact-checking tool works

Facebook uses machine learning to identify ‘potentially false content’ mostly through user feedback. Fb then sends these fake photos and videos to its fact-checkers for reviewing. Tools used to fact-check photos and videos include reverse image searching which uses data to look for similar images on the web. Fact-checkers also analyze image metadata for details like location, date and time, device, file type, exposure, photo modification date and time.

Facebook says that its fact-checkers can “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.”

Rosetta AI

A more advanced technology used by Facebook is its AI tool, Rosetta. This optical character recognition (OCR) tool extracts text from photos and videos and compares it to articles. Facebook says that using Rosetta AI it can process over a billion photos and videos in different languages per day.