Facebook is putting women on the front line of its war on fake news

Fake news is waging war in your Facebook news feed. And the people on the front lines battle are women. We recognize that is kind of unique to have the steam working on something that is so critical to the company, and given that, there is sense of pride that accompanies that, and makes it kinda A special team to work on. Kimpell Brown along time television news gernalist heads up the news partnerships team. We need to regain the trust of people who are on Facebook, who engage with news on Facebook and then we need to regain the trust of Polisher's also. Brown's group works with the news product team, also led by a woman They decide what kind of stories show up in your Facebook news feed and what shouldn't see the light of day.>> Just to state the obvious, we are at a crazy moment in time where a lot of people really don't trust the news and the information that they see and that is an incredible problem that we have to solve. I mean we have heads of state who are in active warfare. With really good credible news organizations. And that is deeply problematic. Facebook has a troubled history with news. But the issue took center stage in 2016. During the US Presidential campaign, Facebook became one of the favorite destinations for Russian trolls meddling in the election. Since Since then, the problem has escalated, sometimes with life and death outcomes. In March, the United Nations blamed Facebook, including fake news posted there, for fanning hatred in Myanmar against minority Muslims where hundreds of thousands fled to refugee camps to escape massacres. I don't think that a platform should be fact checking what individual people are saying within their own communities. Where that changes and where our responsibility is significant is when false news and misinformation is maliciously spreading on Facebook and leading to real world harm, or real world outcomes. And that's where we need to take a broad set of actions in order to prevent. Prevent it from appearing, remove it, or reduce its distribution. But Facebook has been underfire for being inconsistent in what it removes and what it allows to persist on its network. I think it strikes a nerve and tension between both their desire to be a neutral platform, which really they can't be at the end of the day. And significant profit that they build up. They have a juggernaut that's working and they don't wanna upset the investors either. And so they've been very, very careful, and many people think they're moving way too slow because of that. It's a massive, complicated undertaking, and one that will change what you see in your Facebook feed. Facebook's strategy is to lift news from trusted sources higher. Fake news and hoaxes will still be there, but pushed farther down, with links from fact checks to provide context. And it's creating new things to actually help trusted news outlets make money, like subscription paywalls. Publishers who are involved in our subscriptions offer, for instance, we're working hand in hand with them to make sure that they can actually see A significant lift in subscription conversions when they use instant articles. For other publishers we still, to be honest, have work to do. And we're deeply committed to getting it right. But what sets this team apart is its members. At Facebook where men outnumber women almost two to one. This team is led by two female division heads, and women make up the majority of its product leaders. They are fearless, they are fierce. And it's because when you think about how you wanna spend your time, for many of us, there's no greater thing that we can try to do than solve these problems as best as we can. Does that matter? It may. Research shows women led team with greater diversity, are more successfully than the norm. And the success of this team at the planet biggest social network has high stake. Their decisions can shape the future of journalism and affect elections. We are not just doing a job It's working on incredibly hard problems that are going to define the future for our children. That future will still have hoax's, misinformation, and conspiracy theories. But Facebook is putting women on the front line of your news feed hoping to turn the tide.