Fact-checking fake news on Facebook works – just too slowly

FILE – In this Monday, June 19, 2017, file photo, a user gets ready to launch Facebook on an iPhone, in North Andover, Mass. Facebook’s efforts to reduce the spread of fake news using outside fact-checkers may be working, but with a big caveat. The company says once a story receives a “false rating” from a fact-checker, Facebook is able to reduce future impressions of it by 80 percent. But it regularly takes more than three days for a story to receive a false rating. And, the way news stories work, most impressions happen when the story first comes out, not three days later. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola, File)