Facebook begins rolling out its much-anticipated solution to fake news

Mariana Bazo/Reuters

Facebook, which was criticized for its role in facilitating the spread of misinformation doing the presidential election, just debuted its first attempt at dealing with the problem.

As spotted by Gizmodo Media Group’s Anna Merlan, Facebook has started to tag articles as “disputed” by third-party fact-checking organizations.




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The company announced in December 2016 that it would start labeling and burying fake news. To do that, Facebook teamed up with a host of media organizations that are part of an international non-partisan fact-checking network led by journalism non-profit Poynter. The list includes 42 organizations, but Facebook is initially relying on four: Snopes, Factcheck.org, ABC News, and PolitiFact. (All fact-checkers are required to adhere to a code of principles created by Poynter.)

The new system is expected to make it easier for users to flag and report stories that are misleading or false. Those stories will then be reviewed by third-party fact-checkers and labeled as potentially fake in the News Feed.

Facebook also recently rolled out a new section explaining the process of how a story gets marked as disputed, and a step-by-step guide for how readers can mark a story as fake if something questionable comes across their feeds.

Facebook

A Facebook representative told Business Insider in December that a team of researchers would eventually begin reviewing website domains and sending fake sites to fact-checkers as well.

The issue of false information being distributed on Facebook gained prominence during the recent election. Perhaps the most notable example was the “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory, a false report that accused Hillary Clinton and others connected to her campaign of running a child sex ring out of a Washington DC pizza parlor. A North Carolina man was arrested in early December 2016, after walking into the restaurant with an assault rifle and allegedly firing a shot.

Clinton and former President Barack Obama both spoke out about the problem — Obama accused Facebook of creating a "dust cloud of nonsense" by allowing crazy theories to spread, and Clinton called the proliferation of fake news "an epidemic" after the election.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was initially dismissive of such accusations, and said it was “pretty crazy” for anyone to suggest that fake news on Facebook could have any sway over election results. But after facing intense backlash, he changed his tune slightly.

“I recognize we have a greater responsibility than just building technology that information flows through,” Zuckerberg wrote in a statement December 15.

Since the issue of fake news gained national attention, President Donald Trump has adopted the phrase and incorporated it into his criticisms of the news media.

"Russia is fake news,” he said at a February press conference, in response to allegations about his campaign’s ties to Russia.

Whether Facebook’s new approach to curbing the spread of misinformation on the platform will actually help people better differentiate between factual and misleading stories is still to be determined. The tool isn’t yet available to all users — but future disputes about what exactly should be deemed “disputed” seem inevitable.

Trump, Name Now Awash in Controversy, Readies Scion as New Brand

By the time the Federal election Commission announces Hillary Clinton as the 45th President of the USA , Donald Trump will have received perhaps up to a billion dollars of paid advertising and up to $3.5  billion of unpaid advertsing.

Enter Scion. The new brand is planned for use at city and resort locations, Trump Hotels said when Scion was announced Sept. 28. The new hotels are intended to appeal “to a new and different type of guest in more locations around the globe,” Trump Hotels said. The first Scion location is scheduled to open in 2017.


The Scion flag won’t replace the Trump brand, according to Trump Hotels. It was announced more than a week before the Washington Post published a 2005 video of Trump bragging about grabbing and kissing women.



“We chose this name as a nod to the Trump family and their tremendous business successes, including Trump Hotels,” Eric Danziger, chief executive officer of Trump Hotels, said in an e-mail. “We want to acknowledge the association with Trump in a genuine way, while allowing the new lifestyle brand to stand on its own.”


Scattered evidence suggests travelers are choosing to check in elsewhere. It’s hard to measure the impact on Trump Hotels of his most inflammatory comments or the allegations of unwelcome sexual advances. The Trump Organization doesn’t disclose occupancy rates.
Bookings Fall


Bookings at Trump hotels through luxury-travel specialist Ovation Vacations tumbled 29 percent in the past six months, said Jack Ezon, president of the firm. While corporate reservations at Trump Hotels through Altour International Inc. fell 10 percent this year through Oct. 15, leisure bookings rose so much they provided a 16 percent lift overall, said Martin Rapp, senior vice president at the corporate and leisure travel agency, which has a large number of entertainment clients. After all, more than 13 million Americans voted for Trump in the primaries.


Trump Hotels is hardly the first lodging company to introduce a new brand aimed at younger customers who may be turned off by older names that can be seen as stodgy. Marriott International Inc. started Moxy, Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. has Canopy, and Starwood, acquired by Marriott last month, added the Aloft brand. The hotel operators are dealing with competition from travel alternatives such as the home-sharing company Airbnb Inc.
Jets, Towers


In fact, competition from new hotels may be a problem for Scion, said Piers Schmidt, founder of London-based consulting firm Luxury Branding. The new brand diffuses the very things that draw customers to Trump: the image of a billionaire full of brashness and bling, he said.


Trump’s “track record is build it tall, build it loud, promote it hard, fill it with people and create this kind of lifestyle -- the jets, the towers, the hotels,” Schmidt said. “There is a litany of new lifestyle brands that are chasing after the millennials.”


The Trump Organization has eight hotels in the U.S. and seven in other countries. Its U.S. properties include the Trump International Hotel Washington, D.C. -- housed in the 1899 Romanesque Revival-style Old Post Office on Pennsylvania Avenue, five blocks from the White House -- and its foreign properties include the Trump International Hotel & Tower Vancouver, which is under construction. During his run for the White House, Trump gave reporters an April tour of the then-unfinished Washington hotel, held a post-Brexit event at Trump Turnberry in Scotland, and in September returned to the D.C. property to renounce previous claims that President Barack Obama wasn’t born in the U.S. -- after first boasting about his new hotel.

‘Very Valuable’

Last week in Las Vegas, where Trump went up against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in their third and final debate, Rita Solon, who volunteered for her first Republican campaign in 1980 and came from Washington, D.C., to watch the event and make fundraising calls on Trump’s behalf, said she thinks that his candidacy is hurting his businesses.


“His brand was very valuable,” said Solon, wearing a Trump-Pence pin in the lobby of the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas. “The family is making a tremendous sacrifice with his brand. He’s hated and reviled.”

Trump’s new Washington hotel has been hit with graffiti and protests. “All of my friends refuse to come here,” said Peter Gebre, a resident of suburban Maryland who was dining with his wife and son at the hotel’s restaurant to celebrate his 21st wedding anniversary earlier this month. “It does have an impact.”


The Washington hotel also is offering discounts from its pre-opening minimum prices, with rooms advertised for later this month as low as $404, compared with the starting rate of $625 initially set by Trump. October is typically one of the busiest months for Washington hotels.
‘Really Disappointing’


“It’s really disappointing to see they’re charging such low prices for all they said how good they are and how they would come in and crush everybody,” said David Bernand, general manager of the Four Seasons in Georgetown. “You only harvest what you plant.”


Trump Hotels said rates fluctuate for several reasons including market conditions and the $404 rate doesn’t provide an accurate picture of the property’s success since its Sept. 12 soft opening. The opening “has been the most successful in terms of opening bookings, interest from groups and large events” in his 10 years with Trump Hotels, Mickael Damelincourt, managing director of the new Washington hotel, said in a statement.
Beverly Hills


Other hotels have been hurt by politics or their owners’ behavior. The Sultan of Brunei had a similar problem in 2014, when his swank Beverly Hills Hotel was boycotted after the kingdom implemented Islamic criminal laws that call for death by stoning for gay people. Among the events moved from the Sunset Boulevard property was the Feminist Majority Foundation’s Global Women’s Rights Awards, and Richard Branson and Ellen DeGeneres said they wouldn’t stay there.


Then, slowly and rather quietly, the elite began to return -- because they like the place. But the Beverly Hills Hotel is a one-of-a-kind trophy with a decades-long history before the Sultan of Brunei bought it in 1987. The property doesn’t bear the sultan’s name, and the controversy wasn’t followed as closely as Trump has been during his presidential campaign.









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Still, some believe that for Trump, who has been putting his name on everything from steaks to neckties and cologne for more than 30 years, any blow to his business could also be fleeting. The candidate has thrived through multiple bankruptcies, the flop of his Trump Shuttle airline and the demise -- in a swirl of litigation alleging illegal business practices, denied by Trump -- of his eponymous for-profit university.


“Six months after the election, everyone will forget it,” said Jason Awad, a venue planner in suburban Washington. “He’s very resilient.”


Even if the Trump name does suffer long-term, there’s no guarantee that Scion, which means “descendant of a notable family” -- Donald Trump’s children, Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric, are all Trump Hotels executives -- will prove a worthy alternative. After all, it’s not the first time the name’s been used for a youth-oriented brand. With sales falling, Toyota Motor Corp.ended its use of the Scion brand two months ago.

Trump, Name Now Awash in Controversy, Readies Scion as New Brand

By the time the Federal election Commission announces Hillary Clinton as the 45th President of the USA , Donald Trump will have received perhaps up to a billion dollars of paid advertising and up to $3.5  billion of unpaid advertsing.

Enter Scion. The new brand is planned for use at city and resort locations, Trump Hotels said when Scion was announced Sept. 28. The new hotels are intended to appeal “to a new and different type of guest in more locations around the globe,” Trump Hotels said. The first Scion location is scheduled to open in 2017.


The Scion flag won’t replace the Trump brand, according to Trump Hotels. It was announced more than a week before the Washington Post published a 2005 video of Trump bragging about grabbing and kissing women.



“We chose this name as a nod to the Trump family and their tremendous business successes, including Trump Hotels,” Eric Danziger, chief executive officer of Trump Hotels, said in an e-mail. “We want to acknowledge the association with Trump in a genuine way, while allowing the new lifestyle brand to stand on its own.”


Scattered evidence suggests travelers are choosing to check in elsewhere. It’s hard to measure the impact on Trump Hotels of his most inflammatory comments or the allegations of unwelcome sexual advances. The Trump Organization doesn’t disclose occupancy rates.
Bookings Fall


Bookings at Trump hotels through luxury-travel specialist Ovation Vacations tumbled 29 percent in the past six months, said Jack Ezon, president of the firm. While corporate reservations at Trump Hotels through Altour International Inc. fell 10 percent this year through Oct. 15, leisure bookings rose so much they provided a 16 percent lift overall, said Martin Rapp, senior vice president at the corporate and leisure travel agency, which has a large number of entertainment clients. After all, more than 13 million Americans voted for Trump in the primaries.


Trump Hotels is hardly the first lodging company to introduce a new brand aimed at younger customers who may be turned off by older names that can be seen as stodgy. Marriott International Inc. started Moxy, Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. has Canopy, and Starwood, acquired by Marriott last month, added the Aloft brand. The hotel operators are dealing with competition from travel alternatives such as the home-sharing company Airbnb Inc.
Jets, Towers


In fact, competition from new hotels may be a problem for Scion, said Piers Schmidt, founder of London-based consulting firm Luxury Branding. The new brand diffuses the very things that draw customers to Trump: the image of a billionaire full of brashness and bling, he said.


Trump’s “track record is build it tall, build it loud, promote it hard, fill it with people and create this kind of lifestyle -- the jets, the towers, the hotels,” Schmidt said. “There is a litany of new lifestyle brands that are chasing after the millennials.”


The Trump Organization has eight hotels in the U.S. and seven in other countries. Its U.S. properties include the Trump International Hotel Washington, D.C. -- housed in the 1899 Romanesque Revival-style Old Post Office on Pennsylvania Avenue, five blocks from the White House -- and its foreign properties include the Trump International Hotel & Tower Vancouver, which is under construction. During his run for the White House, Trump gave reporters an April tour of the then-unfinished Washington hotel, held a post-Brexit event at Trump Turnberry in Scotland, and in September returned to the D.C. property to renounce previous claims that President Barack Obama wasn’t born in the U.S. -- after first boasting about his new hotel.

‘Very Valuable’

Last week in Las Vegas, where Trump went up against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in their third and final debate, Rita Solon, who volunteered for her first Republican campaign in 1980 and came from Washington, D.C., to watch the event and make fundraising calls on Trump’s behalf, said she thinks that his candidacy is hurting his businesses.


“His brand was very valuable,” said Solon, wearing a Trump-Pence pin in the lobby of the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas. “The family is making a tremendous sacrifice with his brand. He’s hated and reviled.”

Trump’s new Washington hotel has been hit with graffiti and protests. “All of my friends refuse to come here,” said Peter Gebre, a resident of suburban Maryland who was dining with his wife and son at the hotel’s restaurant to celebrate his 21st wedding anniversary earlier this month. “It does have an impact.”


The Washington hotel also is offering discounts from its pre-opening minimum prices, with rooms advertised for later this month as low as $404, compared with the starting rate of $625 initially set by Trump. October is typically one of the busiest months for Washington hotels.
‘Really Disappointing’


“It’s really disappointing to see they’re charging such low prices for all they said how good they are and how they would come in and crush everybody,” said David Bernand, general manager of the Four Seasons in Georgetown. “You only harvest what you plant.”


Trump Hotels said rates fluctuate for several reasons including market conditions and the $404 rate doesn’t provide an accurate picture of the property’s success since its Sept. 12 soft opening. The opening “has been the most successful in terms of opening bookings, interest from groups and large events” in his 10 years with Trump Hotels, Mickael Damelincourt, managing director of the new Washington hotel, said in a statement.
Beverly Hills


Other hotels have been hurt by politics or their owners’ behavior. The Sultan of Brunei had a similar problem in 2014, when his swank Beverly Hills Hotel was boycotted after the kingdom implemented Islamic criminal laws that call for death by stoning for gay people. Among the events moved from the Sunset Boulevard property was the Feminist Majority Foundation’s Global Women’s Rights Awards, and Richard Branson and Ellen DeGeneres said they wouldn’t stay there.


Then, slowly and rather quietly, the elite began to return -- because they like the place. But the Beverly Hills Hotel is a one-of-a-kind trophy with a decades-long history before the Sultan of Brunei bought it in 1987. The property doesn’t bear the sultan’s name, and the controversy wasn’t followed as closely as Trump has been during his presidential campaign.









Close all those tabs. Open this email.


Get Bloomberg's daily newsletter.


Sign Up




Still, some believe that for Trump, who has been putting his name on everything from steaks to neckties and cologne for more than 30 years, any blow to his business could also be fleeting. The candidate has thrived through multiple bankruptcies, the flop of his Trump Shuttle airline and the demise -- in a swirl of litigation alleging illegal business practices, denied by Trump -- of his eponymous for-profit university.


“Six months after the election, everyone will forget it,” said Jason Awad, a venue planner in suburban Washington. “He’s very resilient.”


Even if the Trump name does suffer long-term, there’s no guarantee that Scion, which means “descendant of a notable family” -- Donald Trump’s children, Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric, are all Trump Hotels executives -- will prove a worthy alternative. After all, it’s not the first time the name’s been used for a youth-oriented brand. With sales falling, Toyota Motor Corp.ended its use of the Scion brand two months ago.

Trump turns to debate to curb campaign meltdown

Trump turns to debate to curb campaign meltdown




Getty Images

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton will take the stage for their second debate Sunday evening amid an extraordinary political atmosphere.

Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, has faced calls from prominent members of his own party to drop his White House bid, after a recording emerged on Friday of him using vulgar and aggressive language about women in 2005.

It is an unprecedented situation for the nominee of a major party.


Trump has been adamant about not leaving the race, telling The New York Times that he would not do so “in a million years” and insisting he can still win the presidency.

But neither those words, nor the video statement Trump released around midnight Friday, have quelled the sense of crisis that has enveloped his party. Whether he can do anything on the debate stage on Sunday to break the fever remains to be seen.

"I don’t see how he can do any kind of political repair," said Democratic strategist Craig Varoga. "For the good of America, [Clinton] just needs to speak up for all the people in this country who would never approve of this behavior."

By Saturday afternoon, several Republican senators had called for Trump to drop out of the race, including the party’s third-ranking member in the upper chamber, Sen. John Thune (S.D.). And other Republican lawmakers, including Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) and Rep. Jason Chaffetz (Utah), withdrew their support of the nominee.

Trump’s own running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, has said he was “offended” by the nominee’s words and decided not to appear at a GOP fundraiser Saturday alongside Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) in Trump’s stead.

The situation Trump finds himself in is so grave that it is not immediately clear what would constitute success for him in the debate, which takes place at Washington University in St. Louis Sunday night.

The bombshell tape is sure to come up. In it, Trump spoke in crude terms about his pursuit of an unnamed woman and claimed that his celebrity status enabled him to “do anything” to women, including “grab them by the p---y.”

Trump’s wife, Melania Trump, released a statement on Saturday afternoon calling her husband’s words “unacceptable and offensive to me” but also asserted that it did not “represent the man I know.”

Pence, for his part, has suggested that the debate presents Trump with an opportunity to “show what is in his heart.”

But the prospect that voters will see contrition from Trump on Sunday evening is far from guaranteed.

His late-night video apology included a jab at former President Bill Clinton for his treatment of women and the accusation that “Hillary has bullied, attacked, shamed and intimidated his victims.”

Trump managed to largely steer clear of diving into that line of attack when faced with sexism accusations at the first debate, but he may choose to go on the offensive this time around. Some fellow Republicans, including Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.), have publicly cast doubt on the likely effectiveness of such a tactic.

Sunday’s debate is the only one of the three clashes that will be held in a town hall setting, where the candidates will field questions from audience members. The dynamics of such debates are challenging even under normal circumstances.

For Trump, the dangers seem plain.

If audience members blanch at raising the most shocking elements of the recording on Sunday, the co-moderators, Anderson Cooper of CNN and Martha Raddatz of ABC News, may be quick to bring up the issue themselves.

And Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee, who initially called Trump’s comments “horrific” in a Friday tweet but then fell silent on the issue, will surely use the controversy for all it's worth to attack him, with or without help from the moderators.

The scandal — the most grave of Trump’s furor-filled run for the presidency — comes with only a little more than four weeks to go until Election Day and early voting underway in some states. It is also the nadir of a bleak period for the Republican nominee that began with his performance in his first debate against Clinton on Sept. 26.

He was widely perceived to have lost that encounter. Since then he has extended a feud with a former Miss Universe, been hit with a New York Times exposé on his tax returns, seen his poll ratings dip and become enmeshed in several other disputes.

As of Saturday afternoon, Clinton held a lead of around 3 percentage points in the RealClearPolitics national polling average and was well placed in most battleground states. Virtually no one, in either party, denies that Clinton’s lead is likely to grow in the wake of the Trump recording. 

This leaves the former secretary of State in the curious position of being the undisputed front-runner, yet not the center of attention, on Sunday night. 

One thing to watch will be whether Clinton, an audience member or one of the moderators addresses the Trump tape first. The body language between the two will also be scrutinized — some liberal voices on social media have suggested that Clinton should decline to shake hands with Trump.

The Trump tape could have another beneficiary: TV broadcasters. 

Before the latest revelations, it had been assumed that the 84 million people who watched the first Trump-Clinton clash on TV would be the largest audience for any of the three debates.

Now, the audience that will tune in on Sunday evening might even surpass that figure. If it does, it will set a new all-time high for a presidential debate.

Bill Clinton, Cameos from Zion, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Jason Chaffetz, John McCain, John Thune, Just a Rip Roaring Zionist, Lindsey Graham, Mike Pence, Paul Ryan, Stephen Darori