Facebook changing how it identifies ‘fake news’ stories

Facebook says it is changing how it identifies ‘fake news’ stories on its platform to a more effective system.

The social-media network had put ‘disputed’ labels on stories that fact-checkers found false. Instead, now it will bring up ‘related articles’ next to the false stories that give context to fact-checkers on the stories’ problems.

Facebook said on December 20 that in its tests, fewer hoax articles were shared when they had fact-checkers’ articles spooled up next to them than when they were labelled with ‘disputed’ flags.

The new approach also may help speed up the fact-checking system, which sometimes worked too slowly. Now information from just one checker can be shown next to the false story. The labelling system required two fact-checkers.