Apple CEO, Tim Cook, wants the technological industry to take action against stories of “false news” that pollute the web.
“There must be a massive campaign. We have to think about each demography,” said Cook in a rare interview.
Addressing the Daily Telegraph newspaper, Cook also said that “all American technological companies must create tools that help reduce the volume of false news”.
Other CEOs of a leading technology company, such as Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg, have spoken of the problem in recent months. But Cook’s comments were much more frank.
According to the Telegraph, he said that invented stories and cannueges “kill the minds of people”.
And he called “false news” a big problem in a large part of the world “.
The term “false news” was initially invented to describe online stories designed to deceive readers. Often these stories are shared on Facebook and other social networking sites to generate profits for creators. Other times, the stories are mainly propaganda compensated for political ends.
These types of stories received generalized attention before and after the US elections. Fictive stories with titles like “Pope Francis Shocks World, approves Donald Trump for the president” has won millions of clicks.
It can be very difficult for web surfers to differentiate between legitimate sources of information and counterfeits.
This is where companies like Apple enter.
In the Telegraph interview – part of a European trip of several days – Cook said that “too many of us are in the complaint category at the moment and have not understood what to do”.
He urged technological and intellectual solutions.
“We need the modern version of a public service announcement campaign. This can be done quickly in the event of a will,” Cook told the newspaper.
What he described is music for the ears of media defenders.
“It is almost as if a new course was necessary for the modern child, for the digital child,” said Cook.
There are efforts dispersed in certain schools to teach the literacy of media, emphasizing digital skills, but it is by no means universal.
When asked if Apple would undertake to finance a PSA campaign, an Apple spokesman said that the company made no other comment on Cook’s interview.
Apple’s CEO also suggested that technological companies can help eliminate false stories, although he has added: “We must try to hurry without walking on freedom of expression and the press.”
Apple Apple Apple Apple has been recognized to be a relatively reliable place to find information.
The company “Reviews the publishers who join Apple News”, noted Buzzfeed last December.
And the application has a “report-source function where users can report false news or hate speeches”.
Facebook has recently started working with facts to test “warning labels” that appear when users share invented stories.
Cook, in the interview in the newspapers, expressed its optimism that the scourge of “false news” is a “short -term thing – I do not think people want it in the end”.
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