Facebook have announced they are tackling the issue of hoaxes and fake news articles that spread prolifically throughout the social media site by reducing their reach.
Any seasoned Facebook user will be well aware of the large volume of misinformation that circulates the site every day – whether it’s the latest celebrity “death”, constant reminders that Facebook are going to start charging you, or even the claim that posting legal sounding nonsense to your wall somehow protects all of your information.
Facebook are attempting to tackle the issue by allowing their users to report a particular post or link as a “false news story” (see below, but from what we can tell not all users have this option available yet)
A post that accrues lots of reports will see its reach reduced by the Facebook EdgeRank algorithm that decides what you see on your newsfeed when you log-in (but it won’t get deleted!). The hope being that this will manage to prevent viral hoaxes from going… well, viral. Also, Facebook will detect if a specific link gets deleted by users, since testing by Facebook highlighted that users are likely to delete a post after getting told it is fake. Links that get deleted often will also likely suffer a reduced reach.
Not only that but posts that garner lots of “false news story” reports will also likely be tagged with a warning that states “Many people on Facebook have reported that this story contains false information.”
Both old and new hoaxes continue to spread virally, and with the rising popularity of fake news websites publishing nonsense articles under the guise of satire (bad satire that doesn’t really attempt humour is really just synonymous with lying – see our fauxtire article here) things are not getting much better.
Of course this latest move – which essentially allows the user base to flag articles as… well… wrong – will rely heavily on Facebook’s automatic “no human interaction required” filters – filters which incidentally have gone rather awry in the past. We’ve had our own site flagged as “potentially malicious” by Facebook in the past, and we’re still not sure exactly why.
This potentially places the number one social networking site in a rather precarious position. Okay, reporting a post as a false story is deigned to be used on a story that is clearly fabrication. For example, did scientists really clone a dinosaur as popular nonsense starter NewsHound claimed?
No. Fake story. Report.
Did Morgan Freeman really die for the 8th time this year, as according to the Twittersphere…?
No. Fake story. Report.
However what about when the news story comes from a genuine media outlet – but it’s a media outlet you just generally disagree with? Fox News have just as much vocal cynics as they do loyal supporters, so is it likely their news coverage on – for example – the controversial and highly opinionated subject of immigration will garner as much “false story” reports as it will Likes.
Or worse, how will Facebook tackle the highly divisive subject of politics? Will every opinion piece from one side attract “false story” reports from the other?
Another possible concern could come from the increasingly vocal and ever present conspiracy theory community. Could the “truther” movement start reporting media links that report on tragedies like Sandy Hook and the Boston bombings, given that these theorists don’t believe such events even occurred…
Facebook assert the new “report-and-decrease-reach system” will work, as outright fake news accumulate much more reports than controversial or divisive topics and thus can be separated and actioned upon.
However the “false news story” report option is brand new – most users don’t know about it, some don’t even have it – so we, nor Facebook, really know how the Facebook community at large will react to and use this brand new option that is now at our fingertips.
Will we use it sparingly and only for actual fake news – or will we get click-happy and report everything we don’t agree with…
It’s just a game of wait and see. And then probably tweak.
The Facebook press release can be seen here. What do you think? Will this system work? Let us know below.
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