Facebook: Hoaxes Are a Problem that We Can Fix
Facebook, the social network that has more than 1.3 billion active users, just announced that it released an update for the News Feed, the section that presents status updates, photos, videos, links, app activity and likes from people, pages and groups that you follow on Facebook.
The goal of this News Feed update is to put a stop to stories that are hoaxes. This is in response to many Facebook users saying they would like to see less hoaxes and misleading news in their feeds.
“Today’s update to News Feed reduces the distribution of posts that people have reported as hoaxes and adds an annotation to posts that have received many of these types of reports to warn others on Facebook. We are not removing stories people report as false and we are not reviewing content and making a determination on its accuracy,” said Erich Owens, Software Engineer, and Udi Weinsberg, Research Scientist.
If you find a story and you think it is a hoax, you can report it. The “Report Post” menu comes with a new “It’s a false news story” option.
If lots of Facebook users report a story as being a hoax (and if many Facebook users choose to delete a story because it contains false information), Facebook will place an annotation on it, annotation that says “Many people on Facebook have reported that this story contains false information.” Such posts will get reduced distribution in the News Feed.
“News Feed will take into account when many people flag a post as false. News Feed will also take into account when many people choose to delete posts. This means a post with a link to an article that many people have reported as a hoax or chosen to delete will get reduced distribution in News Feed. This update will apply to posts including links, photos, videos and status updates,” Owens and Weinsberg explained.
The goal of this News Feed update is to put a stop to stories that are hoaxes. This is in response to many Facebook users saying they would like to see less hoaxes and misleading news in their feeds.
“Today’s update to News Feed reduces the distribution of posts that people have reported as hoaxes and adds an annotation to posts that have received many of these types of reports to warn others on Facebook. We are not removing stories people report as false and we are not reviewing content and making a determination on its accuracy,” said Erich Owens, Software Engineer, and Udi Weinsberg, Research Scientist.
If you find a story and you think it is a hoax, you can report it. The “Report Post” menu comes with a new “It’s a false news story” option.
If lots of Facebook users report a story as being a hoax (and if many Facebook users choose to delete a story because it contains false information), Facebook will place an annotation on it, annotation that says “Many people on Facebook have reported that this story contains false information.” Such posts will get reduced distribution in the News Feed.
“News Feed will take into account when many people flag a post as false. News Feed will also take into account when many people choose to delete posts. This means a post with a link to an article that many people have reported as a hoax or chosen to delete will get reduced distribution in News Feed. This update will apply to posts including links, photos, videos and status updates,” Owens and Weinsberg explained.
