Facebook to pilot new fact-checking program with community reviewers

(Reuters) – Facebook Inc said on Tuesday it would ask community reviewers to fact check content in a pilot program in the United States, as the social media platform looks to detect misinformation faster.

The company will work with data services provider Appen to source community reviewers.

The social media giant said data company YouGov conducted an independent study of community reviewers and Facebook users, who will be hired as contractors to review content flagged as potentially false through machine learning, before it is sent to Facebook’s third-party fact-checking partners.

Facebook is under pressure to police misinformation on its platform in the United States ahead of the November 2020 presidential election.

The company recently came under fire for its policy of exempting ads run by politicians from fact checking, drawing ire from Democratic presidential candidates Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren.

(Reporting by Neha Malara in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)

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