Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg reveals the company may crowdsource fact-checking as a new model for Facebook’s third-party factchecking partnerships, now that they've botched the deal they had with Snopes.

Earlier this month, we wrote that Snopes ended their 'debunking false stuff' partnership with Facebook.

This is the first time we've read that Mark Zuckerberg has come up with a new plan.

It sucks.

From today's new reporting at the Guardian:

In the first of a series of public conversations, Zuckerberg praised the efforts of factcheckers who partnered with Facebook following the 2016 presidential election as a bulwark against the flood of misinformation and fake news that was overtaking the site’s News Feed.

“The issue here is there aren’t enough of them,” he said. “There just aren’t a lot of factcheckers.”

He continued: “I think that the real thing that we want to try to get to over time is more of a crowdsourced model where people, it’s not that people are trusting some sort, some basic set of experts who are accredited but are in some kind of lofty institution somewhere else. It’s like do you trust? Like if you get enough data points from within the community of people reasonably looking at something and assessing it over time, then the question is: can you compound that together into something that is a strong enough signal that we can then use that?”

Here's the bullshit-free response from Snopes' Brooke Binkowski, same Guardian story:

Brooke Binkowski, the former managing editor of Snopes, a factchecking site that previously partnered with Facebook, said Zuckerberg’s comments signaled that he “has learned nothing at all”.

Fact-checking site Snopes said in a statement Friday they're ending a partnership with Facebook that was intended to help Facebook cut down on the use of its platform to share disinformation and promote accuracy in public discourse. Read the rest

All lies lead to the truth. For over 20 years, Snopes.com has been the Web's primary bullshit detector and debunker, from death by Pop Rocks to political lies. We need Snopes more than ever. For a Webby Awards exclusive feature, I commissioned talented journalist Rob Walker to explore the history of Snopes and founder David Mikkelson's relentless obsession with, of all things, the truth. From the article:

In the heat of the Republican presidential primary, Jerry Falwell Jr. appeared on The Sean Hannity Show to talk about the Donald Trump he has gotten to know—a man defined by “stuff the public never hears.” So he shared an anecdote about the time the billionaire’s limousine broke down, and a random passing couple stopped to help. Later, these Good Samaritans got some surprising news: As a gesture of thanks, Trump had paid off the their home mortgage. “Pretty impressive,” Hannity declared.

But wait a second. Who exactly were these people, and why couldn’t the limo driver just call AAA? Impressive as this anecdote sounds, is it true? Well, what does Snopes say? Founded more than two decades ago, Snopes.com was originally devoted to researching all manner of just-so tales and urban folklore sourced to a friend of a friend, or to no source at all. These days, when readers “submit a rumor” they’d like confirmed or debunked, it’s likely to be a tale tied to current events. And yes, Snopes founder David Mikkelson recognized that “impressive” Trump anecdote immediately.

“That same story had been told for years,” he says.

Baltimore resident Julie Baker raised $43K on GoFundMe to make her yard more gay after posting a letter she says she got from a neighbor complaining about her "relentlessly gay" yard decor. Snopes investigator Kim LaCapria did a little digging and found the story got curiouser and curiouser. Read the rest