Facebook Takes Drastic Measures to Reduce Fake News on Its News Feed

Facebook has implemented measures to curtail fake news on its popular social media platform, after weeks of intense scrutiny regarding its role in facilitating the spread of rumors and lies throughout the world.

The company, which serves information to 1.8 billion users, announced that it would make it easier for members to flag hoaxes and misinformation. If a certain threshold is met, Facebook will forward the link to third party fact checkers at Poynter’s International Fact Checking Network, which includes organizations such as Snopes, Factcheck.org, Politifact, and ABC News. The fact checking group will also independently flag fake articles, which will be marked as disputed when they are posted on Facebook.

The tech giant also announced that it had taken steps to remove financial rewards for purveyors of spam and clickbait, and barred fake news sites from using ad-selling services.

“We believe in giving people a voice and that we cannot become arbiters of truth ourselves, so we’re approaching this problem carefully,” Adam Mosseri, vice president of product management, said.

 Facebook has been at pains to note that fake news represents only a fraction of a percent of the viral videos, memes, and other forms of content that are seeded through its globally distributed network. Mark Zuckerberg called it “a pretty crazy idea” that his company had influenced the outcome of the past election.

Overall, the company has been very reluctant to accept the mantle of world’s most influential publisher and editor, dodging the label while bowing to public pressure and taking measures to rein in the spread of fake news on its Facebook News Feed. It’s come a long way since it not-so-subtly began massaging trending news on its platform toward the left to maintain popularity with its young user base.