SAN FRANCISCO — A top in-house lawyer at Facebook Inc. said Thursday the company is in a complicated game of cat and mouse with purveyors of “fake news” as it seeks to curb the spread of misinformation via its social media platform.

“Teasing out the false viral story from the true or accurate viral story is no small challenge,” said Facebook Deputy General Counsel Paul Grewal, speaking on a panel that closed out the Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference Thursday morning. “There is important economic and financial underpinning under this that are just as critical at getting to the bottom of as” the technological questions, Grewal said.

Grewal, who left his position as a U.S. magistrate judge in the Northern District of California last year to join Facebook, spoke on a panel titled “Lies, Damn Lies, and the News? Fake News: What It Is, What It Means, and Why It Matters.” He was joined NBC Universal News Group general counsel Susan Weiner, Slate magazine's Dahlia Lithwick, and conservative columnist and radio host Hugh Hewitt. The conversation was moderated by Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.

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