Facebook Has a Plan to Fight Back Against Fake News

The prevalence of “fake news” has been a major topic in 2016.

Fake news comes in all shapes and GIFs and can affect everything from your opinion on kale to the results of a federal election.

Facebook, of course, is the primary host of fake news, something the social network has been grappling with in recent months. Yesterday, it announced it will do more to make sure the articles on your timeline are at least reasonably accurate.

Facebook has partnered with the Poynter International Fact-Checking Network to evaluate articles that have been flagged by users as fake news.

Those articles will then undergo a “smell test” to determine their credibility. If they’re deemed untrustworthy, they’ll be marked by a label along with along with a link to the organization that debunked the story. Users who try to share articles that have been proven false will also receive an alert before they’re able to publish.

fake news

“We have a responsibility to reduce the spread of fake news on our platform,” said Facebook’s Adam Mosseri, vice-president of product development, adding that the company’s current focus will be on “bottom of the barrel” websites.

“We are not looking to flag legitimate organizations,” Mosseri said. “We’re looking for pages posing as legitimate organizations.” Articles from legitimate sites that are controversial or even wrong shouldn’t get flagged, he said.

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