Report: Facebook Refuses To Share Data With Fake News Fact-Checkers

fake stampFacebook is back in the news this week for its role in spreading fake news during the 2016 election. Now the company faces more bad press after a Politico report accused Facebook of “undermining” its own fight against fake news by refusing to share important information with fact-checking groups.

The social media giant first pledged in December to begin working with outside fact-checking groups to curb the fake content problem. However, some of the fact-checkers in question say they’re growing frustrated with Facebook’s refusal to hand over internal data. These third-party experts reportedly want Facebook to tell them how effective their actions have been, and also what stories they should be focusing on. However, Facebook won’t tell them because of “privacy” reasons.

“I think it’s hard to strike the balance. We all have the same objective, to prevent false news from reaching people on our platform,” Facebook News Feed product manager Sara Su told Politico. “We want to be as transparent as we can be while also respecting the privacy of people on our platform.”

Facebook wants to be trusted by both publishers and the public, but it’s hard to know where the company stands when it won’t even support its own partners.