Facebook has started to roll out a new tool in its war against fake news which facts check the stories you post, although it doesn’t yet appear for everyone.
Mark Zuckerberg vowed to tackle the fake news controversy after the social media site was criticised for becoming a breeding ground for the spreading of misinformation.
Some Facebook users in the United States have reported seeing a pop-up window appear when an article is disputed by third-party fact checkers.
Media reporter John Ourand tweeted: “Facebook’s war on fake news starts with a pop up window for re-posters of bad info.”
Facebook’s war on fake news starts with a pop up window for re-posters of bad info. pic.twitter.com/qpPXZjLL3u
— John Ourand (@Ourand_SBJ) 19 de marzo de 2017
The pop-up says: “Disputed by multiple, independent fact-checkers.
“Before you share this content, you might want to know that the fact-checking sites, Snopes.com and Associated Press disputed its accuracy.”
The five types of fake news
Stories classified as fake news can generally be put into five categories, as experts try to develop a way of warning readers what they may be encountering.
1. Intentionally deceptive
These are news stories created entirely to deceive readers. The 2016 US election was rife with examples claiming that “x celebrity has endorsed Donald Trump”, when that was not the case.
2. Jokes taken at face value
Humour sites such as the Onion or Daily Mash present fake news stories in order to satirise the media. Issues can arise when readers see the story out of context and share it with others.
3. Large-scale hoaxes
Deceptions that are then reported in good faith by reputable news sources. A recent example would be the story that the founder of Corona beer made everyone in his home village a millionaire in his will.
4. Slanted reporting of real facts
Selectively-chosen but truthful elements of a story put together to serve an agenda. One of the most prevalent examples of this is the PR-driven science or nutrition story, such as ‘x thing you thought was unhealthy is actually good for you’.
5. Stories where the ‘truth’ is contentious
On issues where ideologies or opinions clash – for example, territorial conflicts – there is sometimes no established baseline for truth. Reporters may be unconsciously partisan, or perceived as such.
Reference: Deception Detection for News, University of Western Ontario
It pops up for some users, depending on their location, on a story about a debunked conspiracy theory about a so-called “Irish slave trade” – which never existed.
According to Quartz, the AP link explains: “The false articles, trending on social media as Ireland’s national holiday approaches, typically reprint entire sections for a comprehensively debunked 2008 column posted on a website that promotes conspiracy theories.”
However, it does not yet appear to have been rolled out to Facebook users in the UK.
Facebook announced in December it would be flagging stories as disputed, with the aim of “providing more context [to] help people decide for themselves what to trust and what to share”.
“We’ll use the reports from our community, along with other signals, to send stories to these organisations,” Facebook said.
“If the fact checking organisations identify a story as fake, it will get flagged as disputed and there will be a link to the corresponding article explaining why. Stories that have been disputed may also appear lower in News Feed.” [source]