Facebook just changed its job listings, and is no longer seeking 'news credibility specialists' (FB)

Mark Zuckerberg scared

A day after Business Insider reported that Facebook was looking to hire "news credibility specialists," the company has changed the job listings.
The company is now seeking "news publisher specialists" and no longer states that it wants people with journalism credentials.
The company wanted to clear up confusion about what the employees will be doing, a spokesman said.
Despite the title and description change, the jobs will essentially be the same as before.

Facebook is officially no longer in the market for "news credibility specialists."

One day after Business Insider reported that Facebook was looking to hire employees who would be tasked with essentially creating a whitelist of trusted publishers, the company has changed those job listings. Although the web addresses for the postings still include "news credibility specialist," the title of the jobs is now "news publisher specialists."

And instead of seeking individuals with "a passion for journalism," Facebook is now saying it wants to hire people who "who believe in Facebook's mission of making the world more connected."

Facebook changed the postings to try to clear up some misunderstandings about them, said Adam Isserlis, a company spokesman.

The "news credibility specialist" title "was confusing," Isserlis said. "We need to be more clear about what it is and what it's not," he said.

Facebook was concerned that people were conflating what these employees would do with the other efforts the company has announced to address fake news on its site.

The news specialists will still be creating a list of news organizations that Facebook plans to use for various purposes on its site. But they won't be doing fact checking, and decisions they make about news organizations won't be incorporated into the algorithm Facebook uses to order posts in its News Feed.

Facebook is taking numerous steps to fight fake news

The company's plan to hire contract employees to help distinguish legitimate news organizations from the many entities and individuals that publish information on its site drew widespread attention following Business Insider's report. At least on its face, the move appeared to contradict CEO Mark Zuckerberg's statements that he didn't want Facebook to be in the business of judging the credibility of news sites.

Earlier this year, Facebook announced plans to poll users to determine which news sites are credible and that it would use those determinations to either highlight or downplay stories in the News Feed, which is essentially the home page on its core social networking service. It's also leaning on third-party news organizations, including the Associated Press, to fact check individual stories.

The company plans to use the in-house news specialists — whatever it plans to call them — to put together a list of credible news organizations that it could employ for various features on its site. One project in particular it plans to use them for is its effort to ensure transparency with political ads.

Facebook recently imposed new rules on political ads that will require them to disclose who funded them. The company is also going to maintain an archive of such ads so user can search them to see who they were targeted at.

But Facebook was concerned that when actual news organizations paid to promote politically-themed news articles on the social network, its algorithms would put them in the same bucket as more traditional political ads. The news specialists' whitelist would be used to help distinguish promoted articles from news organizations from other kinds of ads.

Facebook has drawn flack for being too restrictive and too loose in policing content

The job listings come amid growing widespread concern about Facebook's power and influence — as well as about how it monitors the material that's posted on its service. The company has drawn criticism both for playing too heavy-handed a role in deciding what can be posted or promoted on its site, and for being too loose in what it allows.

On one side, women's groups criticized Facebook for blocking photos of women breastfeeding and right-wing groups pilloried it for reportedly downplaying stories about conservative politicians and topics in its Trending News section. On the other side, Facebook has been excoriated for allowing Russian-linked groups to hijack its service to widely distribute their propaganda that was allegedly aimed at influencing the 2016 presidential election.

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