Facebook pledges to go after fake news, hoaxes

Facebook is committed to clamping down on fake news and hoaxes, Sheryl Sandberg told the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday.

“We know that people don’t want to see hoaxes on Facebook, and we don’t want to either,” the chief operating officer said during a panel discussion, according to the Hollywood Reporter. “And we have announced in the last week a lot of steps we are taking, including helping people report more, working with third-party fact-checkers to get the hoaxes off and, importantly, taking away the financial incentives for spammers, which is really where a lot of this lies.”

In announcing the initiatives, Facebook exec Adam Mosseri had said: “Spammers make money by masquerading as well-known news organizations and posting hoaxes that get people to visit their sites, which are often mostly ads.”