Meta collaborates with Factcheck Lab to reduce misinformation in HK

Meta has partnered with Hong Kong-based fact-checker Factcheck Lab to reduce the spread of misinformation and improve the quality of the news on Facebook and Instagram.

Starting from 1 May, Factcheck Lab will review and rate the accuracy of content across Facebook and Instagram, and label them as false, altered, partly false, or missing context. When third-party fact-checkers debunk a story, it will appear lower in Facebook's News Feed, significantly reducing the number of people who can see it. Moreover, pages and domains that repeatedly share false news will also see the reach of everything they post reduced. Their ability to monetise and advertise will be removed too.

Meta said the programme is in line with its global three-part framework to improve the quality and authenticity of stories in the Feed. After rating a piece of content, third-party fact-checkers will write a debunking article to explain the content’s falsity. The article will be shown in the fact check label that covers the post in News Feed. Page admins and people on the platforms will also receive notifications if they try to share a post or have shared one that has been determined to be false, empowering people to decide for themselves what to read, trust, and share.

Cheng Ka-yue, executive editor of Factcheck Lab, said, "For fact-checking to make a social impact, we must reach widely to those affected by misinformation. Through partnering with Meta, Factcheck Lab hopes to strengthen fact-checking to make comprehensive information more readily available for Hong Kong users."

In addition to fact-checking, Meta will start organising discussion panels and roundtables to engage industry experts, academia and stakeholders of different sectors to deep dive on the importance of independent fact-checking and raise the awareness on digital literacy as the key to fight against misinformation over the long run in Hong Kong.

“Our work to limit misinformation across Meta’s platforms continues, and today we are pleased to announce Factcheck Lab has joined Meta’s third-party fact-checking program for Hong Kong. Factcheck Lab’s work will support our ongoing efforts to connect people to accurate information on Facebook and Instagram,” said Alice Budisatrijo, head of misinformation policy for Asia Pacific at Meta.

Meta’s fact-checking programme started in December 2016 and introduced in Hong Kong in 2019 through the extension of Meta’s global partnerships with the Agence France-Presse (AFP) to fact-check content on Facebook in Hong Kong. Previously, Facebook removed several accounts involved in state-backed operations focused on protests in Hong Kong in 2019, specifically the protest movement and their calls for political change.

Facebook took out a total of seven pages, three groups and five accounts. About 15,500 accounts followed one or more of these pages and about 2,200 accounts joined at least one of these groups. Internal investigations by Facebook discovered “coordinated inauthentic behaviour” as part of a small network that originated in China and focused on Hong Kong.

The individuals behind the campaign, according to Facebook’s head of cybersecurity policy Nathaniel Gleicher, engaged in a number of “deceptive tactics”. They include the use of fake accounts, some of which had been already disabled by Facebook’s automated systems, to manage pages posing as news organisations, post in groups, disseminate their content, and also drive people to off-platform news sites.

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