Internet Companies Must Show 'Substantive' Leadership in Combating Fake News, Group Says

Google, Facebook and other top internet companies need to demonstrate “substantive and long-term” leadership in combating online extremist content and “fake news” disinformation, said nonprofit group Open MIC Tuesday in a report. Facebook and Google are among the firms that faced claims that news hoaxes were posted unchecked over the past year (see 1703200052). Social media platforms and other internet companies have quickly “eclipsed traditional, old school media as principal sources of news and information for most of the public and have morphed from technology platforms to brokers of content and truth on a global scale,” the report said. Fake news and hate speech also are hurting those companies via a loss of advertising revenue, potential legal issues and increased government scrutiny, Open MIC said, citing a mixture of data analysis and stakeholder commentary. “We must push back against misinformation by encouraging gatekeepers such as Google and Facebook to continue their efforts to combat the problem, while avoiding the creation of any central bodies to decide what is ‘true’ or not,” said World Wide Web Foundation founder Tim Berners-Lee in an a statement included in the Open MIC report. The group noted Google parent Alphabet and Facebook shareholders are preparing to introduce resolutions at the companies' upcoming annual meetings that would require them to provide reports to investors about their efforts to combat fake news and extremist content. Facebook has been rolling out tools aimed at improving its users' news literacy and ability to spot fake news, and Google proliferated its “Fact Check” tool (see 1704070018). Open MIC is the Open Media and Information Companies Initiative. Facebook and Google didn't comment.