Report: Meta's fact checking program failed to spot most disinformation

Meta, precursing a wave of new "free speech" policies across its platforms, is disbanding its disinformation-spotting fact checking program. According to a new report, the program was already failing to do its intended job.

Published by misinformation watchdog NewsGuard, the analysis found that only 14 percent of sampled posts with Russian, Chinese, and Iranian disinformation narratives were flagged as false by Meta. "The vast majority of posts advancing foreign disinformation narratives spread without carrying any of the fact-checking labels used by Meta: False, Altered, Partly False, Missing Context, or Satire," the organization claims.

The research was conducted across Meta platforms, using 457 identified posts that advanced 30 different false claims.

One of several reasons for this discrepancy, according to NewsGuard, is that Meta's algorithm fails to spot differences in language, such as rephrasing or paraphrasing, once a post is deemed as misinformation. In 10 of 30 narratives examined by NewsGuard, "Meta labeled one or more of the posts advancing the narrative but left uncorrected dozens of other posts containing the same false claim with the same meaning, albeit with some different wording."

While some foreign-influenced disinformation claims were caught by Meta's program, other posts appeared to never have been fact-checked, at all. "Even with the fact-checking program, malign foreign actors still found ways to exploit Meta’s platforms, and the occasional successes of the fact-checking program — such as the labeling of the Russian disinformation claim targeting Germany’s upcoming elections — are now at risk of disappearing."

Meta did not respond to either NewsGuard's or Mashable's request for comment.

The organization, and other digital rights organizations, have warned users of the platform's policy shift. "If Meta applies the same technology and rules for applying community notes to posts that it has used for fact checker-generated labels, the results are likely to be no more promising," NewsGuard wrote. "In fact, the results could be even weaker in terms of speed and coverage, because a community note requires a process in which a community of users first must be shown to have what Facebook has said has to be 'a range of perspectives.'"

On Jan. 21, Reuters reported that the company would also be exempting paid advertisements from its new Community Notes feature.