Thursday, October 26, 2017

Snapchat Avoids Fake News With Secret Weapon: Humans

As more and more revelations of abuse of advertising systems at Google and Facebook by Kremlin-linked advertisers continue to surface--Venice, California-based Snapchat has managed to keep itself free of "fake news" using a secret weapon: humans. According to a report from Bloomberg, published Thursday, Snapchat has employed a team of human editors to surface legitimate, professionally edited content, specifically curating the news it is presenting to its users. That approach is dramatically different from Facebook and Google, who mostly rely on algorithms to drive news on their services. The report comes the same day as Google reported it would stop carrying ads from two, Kremlin-funded publications, RT and Sputnik, which have been linked to campaigns to influence the outcome of last year's U.S. elections.