Facebook Begins Fighting Fake News By Giving Users A Voice Against Hoax Stories: ‘Disputed’ Might Soon Be One Of The ‘Like’ Options

Facebook appears to have stepped up its fight against fake news. However, the social media giant’s new initiative to combat hoax stories asks its users to spot and report them.

After the American presidential election was plagued with a barrage of fake news stories that were made to go viral over the social media portals and search engines, Facebook has reportedly stepped up its digital initiatives to combat the spread of fake news. The social network’s vice president in charge of the news feed, Adam Mosseri, announced a slew of measures to weed out hoax, factually incorrect, or plain false news stories amidst the constant barrage of news items. As expected, the network will seek the help of its 1.8 billion monthly active users to spot and eliminate the fake news stories.

Facebook Details Its New Plan To Combat Fake News Stories https://t.co/WxYzQ9Gis0

— NPR (@NPR) December 15, 2016

The social platform rolled out a number of tools Thursday that will help Facebook verify if the news story is fake. However, it will all start with users flagging anything they find suspicious as “disputed,” reported NBC News. Not all users will be getting the option as Facebook is gradually rolling out this feature. It is currently limited to a group of testers. Nonetheless, if successful, the feature could soon become commonplace. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had hinted about the initiatives about a month ago.

https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10103269806149061

Once the users flag the news item as “disputed,” the stories will be sent to Facebook’s own researchers. After an internal review, Facebook will send the stories to third-party organizations that specialize in fact-checking. If the verification confirms the news as false or a hoax, Facebook will slap a “fake” label on the story, alerting users about the same. Essentially, the users are being given a voice, said Mosseri.

“We believe in giving people a voice and that we cannot become arbiters of truth ourselves, so we’re approaching this problem carefully. We’ve focused our efforts on the worst of the worst, on the clear hoaxes spread by spammers for their own gain, and on engaging both our community and third party organizations.”

Besides allowing users to report fake news, Facebook is also reportedly updating its algorithms that decide what is pushed up and given prominence in the news feed. While Mosseri did not elaborate on the tweaks, he did hint that the frequency of sharing of a news item could be the benchmark.

“If a story is being read but not shared, it may be a sign it’s misleading. We’re going to test incorporating this signal into ranking, specifically for articles that are outliers, where people who read the article are significantly less likely to share it.”

Facebook to roll out new tools to tackle fake news https://t.co/iQZbVFgJpc

— Reuters (@Reuters) December 15, 2016

Initially, Facebook’s internal team of researchers will shoulder the responsibility of manually sifting through the stories flagged as “disputed.” Moreover, these researchers will also determine which flagged stories demand a detailed investigation. Facebook also plans to include a link explaining why the particular news item is being considered fake. Once the story is determined to be suspicious, Facebook is expected to rely on fact-checking organizations like Snopes, Politifact, and Factcheck.org to confirm the authenticity of the flagged stories.

Congress must pass laws & ensure US free speech! Get geeks out of fascist censorship! @AnitaDWhite @mavros351 @#USA??https://t.co/CrU6CkVPLj

— US Army Veteran?? (@US_Army_Vet) December 15, 2016

Interestingly, users can still share the disputed news stories. However, they will be greeted with a warning. Moreover, Facebook is likely to bury these news items deep in the news feed. Finally, stories labeled and verified as fake news cannot be promoted or turned into advertisements.

It appears Facebook is trying to hit the fake news creators where it hurts the most: their digital wallets. It’s no secret that fake news has been created deliberately to make money. Recent reports indicate hoax or untrue news creators intentionally push hundreds of news articles, and they are earning thousands of dollars, said Mosseri.

“Spammers make money by masquerading as well-known news organizations, and posting hoaxes that get people to visit to their sites, which are often mostly ads. On the buying side we’ve eliminated the ability to spoof domains, which will reduce the prevalence of sites that pretend to be real publications. On the publisher side, we are analyzing publisher sites to detect where policy enforcement actions might be necessary.”

For its 1.8 billion active users, Facebook has become a primary source of news, reported the Huffington Post. However, even Google search users were reportedly hit with hoax stories that cleverly manipulated the search engine to secure top spots in search results. Google recently announced a number of measures to combat fake news. Facebook took a month to come up with a solution.

Interestingly, Facebook categorically noted that the new tools are meant to combat misinformation, and they are certainly not there for censorship.

[Featured Image by Tobias Schwarz/Getty Images]