When Facebook’s new fact-checking system labeled a Newport Buzz article as possible “fake news”, warning users against sharing it, something unexpected happened. Traffic to the story skyrocketed, according to Christian Winthrop, editor of the local Rhode Island website. “A bunch of conservative groups grabbed this and said, ‘Hey, they are trying to silence this blog – share, share share,’” said Winthrop, who published the story that falsely claimed hundreds of thousands of Irish people were brought to the US as slaves. “With Facebook trying to throttle it and say, ‘Don’t share it,’ it actually had the opposite effect.”

We old-timers (online since 1987) don’t know what to make of these kids and their Inter Webs anymore. By Doktor Zoom.

Times’ news staff trashes column on Twitter, while top scientist says paper is “willingly abetting climate change denialism.” By Joe Romm.

Greek yogurt giant Chobani filed a lawsuit Monday against right-wing radio host Alex Jones, accusing the conspiracy theorist of publishing false information about the company. Chobani says that Jones and his Infowars website posted fabricated stories earlier this month that linked Chobani owner Hamdi Ulukaya and the company to a sexual assault case involving refugee children. The company filed the lawsuit in Idaho District Court in Twin Falls, where it operates the largest yogurt plant in the world.

One of the sucky legacies of 2016 is the surge of fake news. Donald Trump rode a wave of misinformation to the White House and British voters shot themselves in the foot after listening to the false promises of Brexit. Norway is one of the countries that isn’t especially keen on following the fuckups of the US and UK by letting lies slide. That’s why Norway’s three biggest competing media outlets announced a joint project to combat fake news.

Facebook says it has targeted 30,000 fake accounts linked to France ahead of the country's presidential election, as part of a worldwide effort against misinformation. The company said Thursday it's trying to "reduce the spread of material generated through inauthentic activity, including spam, misinformation, or other deceptive content that is often shared by creators of fake accounts." It said its efforts "enabled us to take action" against the French accounts and that it is removing sites with the highest traffic.

Facebook has started to roll out a new tool in its war against fake news which facts check the stories you post, although it doesn’t yet appear for everyone.

This story has not been disputed.

When Anas Modamani found out that the internet had labeled him a terrorist, he was visiting his cousin in eastern Germany. It was a few days before Modamani’s 19th birthday, in March of last year, and the trip was supposed to be a respite from language classes and long waits at the refugee center in Berlin—the usual rhythm of life since Modamani had immigrated from Syria seven months earlier. But when he logged into Facebook, he saw that a friend had sent him a disturbing message.

Bill Donohue comments on news stories that Catholic nuns in Ireland housed a mass grave of babies: It was a lie in 2014 and it is a lie in 2017. There is no evidence of a mass grave outside a home for unmarried women operated by nuns in Tuam, Ireland, near Galway, in the 20th century. The hoax is now back again, and an obliging media are running with the story as if it were true.

Chinese state media has said that a prominent Chinese rights activist had made up “fake news” of torture to grab international headlines, but his defenders said the accusations were a coordinated attempt to smear his name. State media said disbarred lawyer Jiang Tianyong, 46, was behind news reports of police torturing another detained rights activist, Xie Yang, and that Jiang had later admitted to telling Xie’s wife to make up details of torture in captivity to attract attention to the case.

Less than a week after President Donald Trump publicly attacked journalists for using anonymous sources in stories about his administration, it appears the president become one himself on Tuesday - at least briefly. Three television anchors, shortly after attending from a White House lunch meeting with the president, emerged to report news on the president's belief that the time may be right for immigration reform. Fox News Channel's Bret Baier, and CNN's Wolf Blitzer and Jake Tapper, attributed the news to a “senior administration official.” ABC's George Stephanopoulos, in a tweet, sourced it to a “WH official.”

The discussion about "fake news" certainly began with good intentions, with participants earnestly focused on how disinformation, shitty journalism and bullshit clickbait were filling the noggins of a growing segment of the public for whom critical thinking was already a Sisyphean endeavor. The solution for this problem was never as clean and easy as most of the conversations suggested, especially given that Americans...

But in the near term, it's going to create fake news, too.

Until recently, Mark Zuckerberg liked to think of Facebook as a basically innocuous social utility. But that view has taken a beating in recent months, as news shared on Facebook had a huge — and, critics say, pernicious — effect on the presidential election. In an open letter released on Thursday, Zuckerberg grapples with the implications of Facebook’s growing power. “For the past decade, Facebook has focused on connecting friends and families,” he writes. “With that foundation, our next focus will be developing the social infrastructure for community.”

Apple CEO Tim Cook wants the tech industry to take action against "fake news" stories that are polluting the web. "There has to be a massive campaign. We have to think through every demographic," Cook said in a rare interview. Speaking with The Daily Telegraph newspaper, Cook also said "all of us technology companies need to create some tools that help diminish the volume of fake news."

Facebook has launched a campaign to crack down on fake news in France, ahead of the country’s presidential election later this year. As Reuters reports, the social network announced on Monday that it will work with eight French media companies to fact-check and filter news articles that have been reported by users. According to Le Monde, one of Facebook’s partners, the French campaign is similar to an initiative that Facebook launched in the US late last year...

Kellyanne Conway, a senior adviser to Donald Trump, has come in for criticism and ridicule after blaming two Iraqi refugees for a massacre that never happened. Conway, the US president’s former campaign manager who has frequently faced the press to defend his controversial moves, cited the fictitious “Bowling Green massacre” in an interview in which she backed the travel ban imposed on visitors from seven Muslim-majority countries.

Perhaps it was an alternative massacre?

Google kicked 200 publishers off one of its ad networks in the fourth quarter, partly in response to the proliferation of fake news sites. The company banned the publishers from its AdSense network, an ad placement service that automatically serves text and display ads on participating sites based on its audience. The ban was part of an update to an existing policy that prohibits sites that mislead users with their content.