Snopes Quits as Facebook’s Fact-Checker, Suggests Blacklisting Instead

Snopes on Friday announced it is ending a partnership with Facebook to fact-check information shared to the social media giant, citing a limited amount of resources available for the project.

“After contributing to that effort for two years, we want to inform our readership that Snopes.com has elected not to renew our partnership with Facebook,” a statement via CEO David Mikkelson and Vinny Green, vice president of operations, reads. “At this time we are evaluating the ramifications and costs of providing third-party fact-checking services, and we want to determine with certainty that our efforts to aid any particular platform are a net positive for our online community, publication, and staff.”

According to Snopes, the process of manually flagging false information became too burdensome for its 16-person team. “With a manual system and a closed system — it’s impossible to keep on top of that stuff,” Green said, then floated the option of permanently de-platforming repeat offenders.“Do you need fact-checkers to stop and do all this manual work? Or should fake websites just be reported through other means and supply a body of evidence that these people shouldn’t be on your platform because of their nefarious activity?”

In December 2016, Snopes signed onto become a fact-checker for Facebook — an initiative the technology launch in a bid to crack down on fake news circulating on its platform during the 2016 presidential election. Facebook paid Snopes $100,000 to become a fact-checking partner — an agreement that allegedly had not been fully upheld when the contract between the two parties ended at the end of December.

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2019/02/01/snopes-quits-as-facebooks-fact-checker-suggests-blacklisting-instead/