Fake news

Zuckerberg promises Facebook action over fake news

In a post on his Facebook profile Mr Zuckerberg said he hoped to announce measures to tackle fake stories "soon".

He said this work "often takes longer than we'd like in order to confirm changes we make won't introduce unintended side effects or bias".

And he said that more than 99% of content on Facebook "is authentic".

"Only a very small amount is fake news and hoaxes. The hoaxes that do exist are not limited to one partisan view, or even to politics," he added.

The rise of fake news

While the internet has enabled the sharing of knowledge in ways that previous generations could only have dreamed of, it has also provided ample proof of Winston Churchill's line that "A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on".

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