Facebook is granting social scientists studying the effects of fake news on social access to the network 's private data . This much is obvious: What the world needs now is less fake news. Gary King , director of Harvard University 's Institute for Quantitative Social Science , is examining whether it is possible to develop rules to classify whether news is true or false , rather than just an opposing ideology . He has co - founded Social Science One to give researchers unprecedented access to Facebook user data in a bid to establish whether such rules could then be applied universally to determine whether a report is fake or not .
Facebook is granting social scientists studying the effects of fake news on social access to the network 's private data . Gary King , director of Harvard University 's Institute for Quantitative Social Science , is examining whether it is possible to develop rules to classify whether news is true or false , rather than just an opposing ideology . He has co - founded Social Science One to give researchers unprecedented access to Facebook user data in a bid to establish whether such rules could then be applied universally to determine whether a report is fake or not .