Facebook is partnering with the news agency Reuters to fact-check viral videos, photos, and other user content

REUTERS/Erin Scott

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

• Facebook is paying the global news agency Reuters to carry out fact-checking on its behalf, Reuters announced Wednesday.
• Reuters says the program will see its fact-checkers verify some user-generated photos, videos, headlines and other English- and Spanish-language content in the US "in the run-up to the US election and beyond."
• Facebook has launched multiple fact-checking initiatives over the past few years, though it's also faced fierce criticism - from politicians and even its own employees - for refusing to fact-check political ads.
• Reuters and Facebook did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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Facebook is partnering with the news agency Reuters to carry out fact-checking on its behalf, adding a high-profile name to its global roster of fact-checkers.

Reuters says the program, which it announced Wednesday, will see its fact-checkers verify the authenticity of user-generated photos, videos, headlines, and other English- and Spanish-language content in the US "in the run-up to the US election and beyond." Its findings will be published on a Reuters blog created previously to fact-check similar content.

The blog's most recent post, from January 26, debunks a video purporting to show the helicopter crash in which the basketball star Kobe Bryant was killed.

"It's a responsibility for news organizations and platforms to halt the spread of false news," Reuters' director of global partnerships, Jess April, said in a statement published Wednesday.

Reuters and Facebook did not immediately respond to requests for further comment on the partnership.

Facebook has launched several fact-checking initiatives over the past few years, partnering with multiple third-party fact-checkers around the world.

These fact-checkers include Full Fact in the UK and Agence France-Presse in Malaysia. Facebook says its third-party fact-checkers are certified by the impartial International Fact-Checking Network.

Yet despite all this, Facebook has persisted in refusing to fact-check political ads published on its platform.

This stance has provoked high-profile criticism from across the political spectrum.

One particularly controversial case involved a campaign ad for President Donald Trump that contained falsehoods about the Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden, which Facebook refused to remove.

Critics of Facebook's policy are said to include the company's own employees.

According to an internal letter obtained by The New York Times in October, 250 Facebook employees petitioned CEO Mark Zuckerberg to change the company's policy on fact-checking political advertising.

The employees reportedly claimed the policy "allows politicians to weaponize our platform by targeting people who believe that content posted by political figures is trustworthy."

Prominent politicians like Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York subsequently spoke out in support of the petition, while the author Stephen King quit the platform last week over the policy.

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