One of Facebook's fact-checking partners, Snopes.com, has decided to bail on its partnership with the social network.
"We want to determine with certainty that our efforts to aid any particular platform are a net positive for our online community, publication, and staff," Snopes said in a statement on Friday.
Snopes has been evaluating the "ramifications and costs" of providing its fact-checking services to Facebook, it said. The site isn't ruling out future collaborations with Facebook, provided they are "beneficial to platforms, fact-checking organizations, and the user community alike." In 2017, Snopes earned $100,000 from Facebook for its fact-checking efforts.
The news comes after two former Snopes staffers accused Facebook of using the site as a cover against bad PR. "They're not taking anything seriously. They are more interested in making themselves look good and passing the buck… They clearly don't care," a former managing editor told The Guardian in December.
Snopes.com, which specializes in debunking misinformation, had been partnering with Facebook on fact-checking since late 2016, amid ongoing concerns about fake news on the social network. It was one of several sites that reviewed flagged news articles for possible inaccuracies. If any were found, Facebook would demote the content and add a link to the real news under the article.
However, The Guardian painted a picture of Facebook prioritizing its business model over listening to its fact-checkers. The former Snopes managing editor specifically pointed out that Facebook became a hot bed for hate speech in the Asian country of Myanmar.
"I was bringing up Myanmar over and over and over," the editor said. "They were absolutely resistant."
In response to Snope's announcement, Facebook told PCMag: "We value the work that Snopes has done, and respect their decision as an independent business."
The social network is still partnering with 34 other groups on fact-checking. In the US, this includes the Associated Press, Factcheck.org, and PolitiFact. In addition, Facebook has plans to expand the program to more partners, specializing in different languages.
"Fighting misinformation takes a multi-pronged approach from across the industry. We are committed to fighting this through many tactics, and the work that third-party fact-checkers do is a valued and important piece of this effort," Facebook said.
In September, Facebook's fact-checking partnerships were criticized by ThinkProgress, which accused the company of deferring to the now-defunct conservative magazine The Weekly Standard after it marked a ThinkProgress piece on Roe vs. Wade as false.