Facebook wants to expose information manipulated by Russian propaganda

Facebook has created a smart tool so that users know if they have consumed content promoted by Russian propaganda, so that users know what content they consumed was manipulated or influenced by Russian propaganda.

The popular social network stated that the Kremlin-linked Internet Research Agency spent $100,000 on 3,000 fake news ads between 2015 and 2017 on approximately 470 websites, all of which have since been taken down. Russian agents posted 131,000 messages on Twitter, and 126 million Americans saw their posts on Facebook. The agents also uploaded a thousand videos to YouTube, according to figures presented by executives from these tech giants when they testified before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee three weeks ago.

Since the election campaign, Facebook has been under scrutiny for spreading hoaxes and fake news through its network, which has been linked to attempts to interfere in the voting process. This has led users to distrust the popular social network, fearing for their personal data privacy and security.

Therefore, Facebook is proposing this new transparency tool so that users can be aware of the content they followed and viewed that was being promoted by Russian agents to influence the United States presidential elections, in which Donald Trump won.

This tool allows users to know which pages linked to Russian propaganda, on Facebook and Instagram, they followed or rated with the popular "like" between January 2015 and August 2017.

Facebook and its controversy with fake news or hoaxes

Facebook has long been embroiled in controversy regarding the spread of false information and hoaxes on its platform. As a result, it has already implemented an alert tool to categorize the veracity of information and notify users if such content is detected. Therefore, when these types of problems arise, where truthful information is compromised or attempts are made to use information to influence Facebook users, the platform puts in place tools to protect transparency.