March 6, 2017

Facebook Rolls Out ‘Disputed News’ Tag to Combat Fake News

By Jennifer Cowan in Breaking News Social Media

Facebook, without fanfare, has launched its latest tool to tackle fake news on its platform.

First spotted on Twitter Friday night, the ‘Disputed News’ tag surfaces links to fact-checking sites such as Snopes and Politifact.  The tags, complete with a red exclamation mark warning sign, appear beneath news stories posted to Facebook that have been found to be inaccurate.

Facebook is flagging links to fake sites now, looks like: pic.twitter.com/N7xaWDkdYA

— Anna Merlan (@annamerlan) March 3, 2017

To flag stories, Facebook is working with third-party fact checking organizations that are signatories of Poynter’s International Fact Checking Code of Principles. Reports from Facebook users combined with other signals send suspicious stories to these organizations. Articles that the fact checking organizations deem to be fake will be flagged as disputed along with a link to the corresponding article to explain why.

The social networking firm also added a new Help page with details about the new system and how it works.

Disputed News tags complement the news feed updates Facebook rolled out in December which include easier methods to report a hoax and eliminating the ability for spammers to spoof domains, meaning they cannot hide who and what they are.

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Jennifer Cowan is the Managing Editor for SiteProNews.