Meta (Facebook) includes Venezuela in its data verification program

Caracas, 15 Mar Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, included Venezuela in its data verification program with the incorporation of Cotejo.info, a Venezuelan digital communication platform created by the Medianálisis Civil Association that puts the spotlight, above all, on the speeches of the authorities. “The partnership with Meta to verify false information on Facebook and Instagram is important to strengthen the work we are doing from journalism in the fight against misinformation,” said Andrés Cañizález, director of Cotejo.info, according to a press release from the parent company. According to Cañizález, many Venezuelans turn to social networks in search of news, as well as using it for exchange with family and friends. “With Cotejo.Info's experience in verifying and checking data, we can contribute to better quality information. For us, it is a professional challenge and a way to provide a service to the public in Venezuela,” he added. Cotejo.info will be Meta's first local partner in Venezuela and, like the other members of the program, is certified by the International Fact-Checking Network of the Poynter Institute for Media Study. In Latin America, the project also includes media and verification platforms. “Meta uses community reports and signals captured by artificial intelligence to detect potentially misleading or inaccurate posts that are sent to verifiers for examination,” the US company said in the statement. He assured that the distribution in the Feed (content stream that users scroll through) of posts marked as misleading by Coltejo.info and other independent data checkers will be significantly reduced and cannot be promoted through payments. “Our goal is to help people have more information to decide what they read, who they trust and what they share. For that, every time Cotejo.info writes texts about a certain content, people will be able to see them in Related Articles under the post in the Feed for better context,” Meta added. According to Cotejo, Venezuelan society “is suffering from a limited circulation of comprehensive, balanced, transparent and timely information on national developments in the traditional media at the citizen level.” He pointed out, on his website, that this scarcity of truthful information is the result “of an emasculating dynamic of the free flow of information, derived from the deliberate action of different State institutions and through a 'communication hegemony' hitherto promoted by the Venezuelan Government.”