Fake news is not something new to our modern society and it had always been a serious problem as well.
However, with the surprise election victory of Donald Trump in America, even the biggest social media network on the planet is recognising that fake news is proving to be a huge problem in this knowledge economy.
Earlier this year, Facebook axed the team of contractors who curated its trending topics feed, opting for an automated list instead. False stories started popping on the trending topics feature immediately afterward, making the company abandon such human input in its little-known Trending box.
Facebook has a direct responsibility to get rid of fake news and for this purpose, Facebook is rolling out a new feature that lets the users flag the stories they think are false.
The CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg posted two statements on the social network saying:
“We don’t want any hoaxes on Facebook.”
He also said “its extremely unlikely hoaxes changed the outcome of this election.”
Facebook Fights Back Against Fake News
Zuckerberg mentioned the steps the company was taking for tackling th problem of fake news. These included better detection of fake news, a better reporting system for fake news, an option to flag fake news with warning labels.
Surveys have started popping up below the stories on Facebook, which asks the users about how misleading they think the content of the article is.
Here’s one example of how you can flag fake news on Facebook:
Now the company seems to be solely depending on the general public to solve this fake news problem. Some are already questioning the move while the others are appreciating it.
Facebook might even hire a distinguished editor and a small staff to help the effort.
Via DailyDot
