Facebook rolls out new features to fight fake news

Facebook on Thursday unveiled new ways it’s cracking down on fake news, following a nationwide backlash against made-up reports that flooded the social networking site during the election cycle.

The company’s plans involve targeting the “worst of the worst” offenders, relying on users to flag fake content and outsourcing fact-checking to third parties.

“With any changes we make, we must fight to give all people a voice and resist the path of becoming arbiters of truth ourselves,” co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post. “I believe we can build a more informed community and uphold these principles.”

The move comes after false political stories flooded social media, claiming Pope Francis had endorsed Donald Trump’s bid to become president; an FBI agent investigating Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server killed his wife and then himself; and tens of thousands of fraudulent ballots marked for Clinton were discovered in a warehouse. The false stories led some to question whether fake news impacted the outcome of the election — which Zuckerberg last month called a “pretty crazy idea.”

Nevertheless, a few days after making that comment, Zuckerberg assured Facebook users that he was working on the fake news problem. On Thursday, he rolled out what he hopes will be the first steps toward a solution.

Facebook is making it easier for users to report hoaxes, according to Zuckerberg’s profile page and a news release from Facebook Vice President Adam Mosseri.

If enough people report a story, it will be sent to third-party fact-checking organizations. Then, if those organizations say the story is false, Facebook will flag it with a blurb that says, “Disputed by 3rd party fact-checkers.” Users still can share that story, but before they do, they will get another notification that says, “Before you share this story, you might want to know that independent fact-checkers disputed its accuracy.”

Stories that have been disputed might appear lower in users’ news feeds, and they can’t be made into an ad or promoted.

Facebook also found that if people are less likely to share an article after reading it, the story may be fake. The company will test incorporating that metric into its news feed ranking.

And Facebook plans to make posting fake stories less lucrative for spammers, who rake in money through advertising when people visit their websites. Facebook said it has done away with the ability to “spoof” domains, making it harder for sites to pretend to be real publications.

A study released Thursday by the Pew Research Center found two-thirds of U.S. adults believe made-up news has caused a “great deal” of confusion, and 23 percent said they have shared a fake news story themselves.

Authorities say a shooting earlier this month in a Washington, D.C. pizza restaurant was motivated by false stories claiming the restaurant concealed a child sex-trafficking ring. Nobody was struck by a bullet in the incident.

But trying to stop the spread of fake news puts Facebook in a precarious position, said tech analyst Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies, because the company has to make sure it’s also protecting users’ First Amendment rights.

“I think this is a good first step,” Bajarin said of Facebook’s fake news crackdown. “I think they will learn a lot from it. And I would hope that over the next year they would be able to create more efficient software with the kind of (artificial intelligence) algorithms and deep learning to eventually root out all fake news from their platform.”