The BBC are to spend millions of pounds of taxpayers money in setting up a new ‘fact checking’ team tasked with debunking and eliminating alternative media websites from social media. Amid the growing hysteria around the impact of so-called ‘fake news,’ BBC news chief James Harding announced that the State run broadcaster would be “weighing in on the battle over lies, distortions and exaggerations,” by spending license fee money on debunking anything deemed ‘out of the ordinary’ that counters the official narrative. A dedicated team working in the newly created “Reality check” unit will target subversive news reports from independent outlets being widely shared on social media. They will work closely with Facebook to ensure these types of news stories do not appear on users’ timelines. Theguardian.com reports: “The BBC can’t edit the internet, but we won’t stand aside either,” Harding said. “We will fact check the most popular outliers on Facebook, Instagram and other social media. “We are working with Facebook, in particular, to see how we can be most effective. Where we see deliberately misleading stories masquerading as news, we’ll publish a Reality Check that says so. “And we want Reality Check to be more than a public service, we [...]
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