Facebook prepares to mark “expert”
Silicon Valley: Popular social media platform Facebook has decided to provide “expert” badges at the group level to prevent false and misleading news.
Maria Smith, vice president of communities for the Facebook app, announced in a post yesterday that group admins will now be able to identify certain members separately by giving them “expert” markings.
Maria said that there are currently more than 70 million admins in Facebook groups, while most of the group members have extensive knowledge of a particular field or specialization in a particular field.
The “expert” mark is intended to “distinguish” them from the crowd by identifying the same group members so that they can better guide others.
The decision is aimed at preventing the spread of misinformation from Facebook groups and identifying individuals who can provide social media users with accurate, authoritative and reliable information on a particular topic.
However, if an expert misuses his position to mislead users or misrepresents them through his posts and comments, the group administrator will also have the power to withdraw the expert’s mark.
Note that Facebook groups already have a variety of distinctions, most of which are automatically found by a group member.
These distinctions include Founding Member, Group Admin, Group Moderator, New Member, Rising Star, Conversation Starter, Conversation Booster, Greater, Visual Story Trailer and Link Curator.
It should be noted that social media is central to the global spread of misinformation, which has been seen to affect election results, while Facebook has been severely criticized for failing to prevent misleading information.
In October last year, an online human rights group, Awaaz, sharply criticized the Facebook administration for taking appropriate and decisive action in March 2020 to view fake posts related to the October US election. The number of people would never exceed 10 billion.