Facebook employees set-up unofficial task force to tackle fake news
A group of Facebook employees have established a fake news task force in direct defiance of chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, who has repeatedly insisted that the social network has no responsibility to address the issue.
Facebook has been implicated in the rise of Donald Trump after it published a number of fake news items which may have proved beneficial to the president elect's campaign.
Now a group of employees have taken the initiative to tackle the problem off their own bat, telling BuzzFeed News that they disagreed with Zuckerberg’s assertion that Facebook influenced the election as "a pretty crazy idea".
It is said that ‘more than dozens’ of people from across the company have signed up to the initiative on condition of anonymity amidst fears for their jobs, organising secret meetings out of earshot of management.
Facebook has not commented publicly on the claims but has moved to cut off the lifeblood of fake news websites - advertising revenues - as it ramps up its efforts to purge misinformation from the platform in the wake of growing fallout.