Facebook begins 'fact-checking' photos and videos

Faced with complaints by users about fake news to the use of the network to manipulate elections, Facebook Inc said on Thursday it had begun "fact-checking" photos and videos to reduce the hoaxes and false news stories.

Facebook has also faced an uproar about the harvesting of 50 million people's Facebook data by the political consultancy Cambridge Analytica.

Manipulated photos and videos are another growing problem on social media.

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Tessa Lyons, a product manager at Facebook told the press that fact-checking began on Wednesday in France with assistance from the news organisation AFP and will soon expand to more countries and partners.

Lyons did not, however, specify what criteria Facebook or AFP would use to evaluate photos and videos, or how much a photo could be edited or doctored before it is ruled fake.

She said the project is a part of "efforts to fight false news around elections," she said.

A representative for AFP could not immediately be reached for comment.

Samidh Chakrabarti, another Facebook product manager, said in the briefing that the company had begun to "proactively" look for election-related disinformation rather than waiting for reports from users, helping it to move more quickly.

Alex Stamos, Facebook's chief security officer, said in the briefing that the company was concerned not only about false facts but also other kinds of fakery.

He said Facebook wanted to reduce "fake audiences," which he described as using "tricks" to artificially expand the perception of support for a particular message, as well as "false narratives," such as headlines and language that "exploit disagreements."

After a tumultuous two weeks, shares of Facebook closed up 4.4 per cent at $159.79 on Thursday, down more than 13 per cent from March 16, when Facebook disclosed the Cambridge Analytica data leak and sparked fears of stricter regulation.

Other ways tried by Facebook to curb the spread of fake news include using third-party fact-checkers to identify them, and then giving such stories less prominence in the Facebook News Feed when people share links to them.

Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said in January that Facebook would prioritise "trustworthy" news by using member surveys to identify high-quality outlets.