INTERVIEW
The fight against the fake news is, for the big media, a fight of all the moments. Recently, the BBC launched an initiative to try to stem the wave of misinformation that regularly sweeps the internet. The British media has teamed up with other press titles, including AFP or Reuters, but also with Facebook, Twitter, Google or Facebook. An association with Internet giants, according to Thomas Huchon, the Spicee site, specializing in fact-checking, invited Philippe Vandel Tuesday on Europe 1.
"We can no longer try to work on the internet without at least discussing with these gigantic companies," says the journalist. "That does not mean that we have to let them do what they want, there is a balance of power to be established with the giants of the net, they must not be completely exonerated from our laws, our citizens principles, it is a way of constraining them, of talking with them, "the journalist still judges.
"In any world event, people live in absolutely different realities"
And progress is real. Grégoire Lemarchand, deputy editor in charge of social networks and fact-checking at AFP, can testify. "They are willing to try to make their platform a little healthier," says the reporter on Europe 1. "We have been working for almost two years with Facebook, which takes our audit content and puts them on the platform ", explains Grégoire Lemarchand. "Concretely, if you share a decontextualized photo, with a legend that has nothing to do, if we, AFP, say that this content is false, you will have a warning that invites you to read the fact-checking AFP telling you why it's wrong, so there is already a de facto effort. "
And these efforts are indispensable. "What we discover is that at any world event, the population lives on absolutely different realities, the social networks algorithms pulling up content that they considered relevant to the user. fight against fake news, against misinformation, professional journalists are at a disadvantage, "remarks Thomas Huchon. "The newspapers are all competing, but there are issues that competition should no longer play, it's the common core, which will allow us to debate the facts, the information," concludes the journalist. Spicee.