New feature will let you appoint “experts” to stop misinformation

With the pandemic, the world has experienced an even more problematic dimension of disinformation. With millions of users, it becomes easy to spread false information without anyone stopping it, and that role falls to the social networks themselves. Facebook still plays cards in this direction.

The company decided to add a new feature that will allow a group to appoint an “expert” in order to limit misinformation.

Facebook has worked and developed resources to mitigate the misinformation that often circulates on its platform. In fact, these efforts have grown with the emergence of the pandemic and the need not to deliver false, misleading, or disguised content to users.

From now on, Facebook will begin to allow, in the groups of social networks, to be able to appoint “experts”. It will be, nothing less, than people, informed from the outset of the subjects discussed, who will be able to make their voice heard and see their publications amplify. In other words, your posts will have more relevance than those of other members, giving them a prominent place. According to BBC News, appointees may or may not accept this tag, which will be added to their name, in the group, if applicable.

In this way, the platform ensures that there are subject matter experts who prevent misinformation and people that members can trust. This is because they will conceptually provide trustworthy content and be seen as authority figures. These can be set by those who moderate or manage Facebook groups.

Responsibility for disinformation will lie with named experts on Facebook

In November 2020, a group, Stop the Steal, was created with more than 365,000 members. They alleged that the election to the American presidency had been a fraud. If Facebook had not removed the group, the consequences could be very serious.

However, the responsibility for the disinformation circulating on Facebook lies, according to various organizations, with Facebook itself. Indeed, it must guarantee the means to prevent or mitigate it. Consequently, this action of the company is understood as a means of diverting the responsibility, by depositing it then on “experts”.

The question is how Facebook will react if the “experts” are the ones spreading the misinformation.

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