Facebook wants to cut down the number of hoaxes in your News Feed

By John Callaham
published

Facebook is making yet another change in its News Feed today, designed to reduce the number of stories that could offer false information or be deliberate hoaxes. This new feature comes a few months after Facebook announced it would give less relevance to News Feed posts that have what it considers to be "click-bait" headlines.

The company described just how it will accomplish this task:

To reduce the number of these types of posts, News Feed will take into account when many people flag a post as false. News Feed will also take into account when many people choose to delete posts. This means a post with a link to an article that many people have reported as a hoax or chosen to delete will get reduced distribution in News Feed. This update will apply to posts including links, photos, videos and status updates.Posts that receive lots of reports will be annotated with a message warning people that many others on Facebook have reported it.

Facebook adds that this new feature should not affect news stories that are designed to be satirical or humorous, so posts from The Onion should be safe.

QR: Facebook

Source: Facebook

John Callaham
John Callaham
36 Comments
  • Change log is there now.
  • Facebook beta updated
  • Was just about to say this same thing.
  • When wil we get 'feeling' in status ?
  • 2170?
  • Most probably yes.. :P anyway . Btw really its seems faster
  • I don't have fb apps on my phone
    I just use the browser
  • I use browser for feeds.. But for comment taging alone i use app
  • The problem with the browser that you can't tag you're friends :/
  • Best way to avoid the hoaxes on your faecbook is delete your facebook.
  • Exactly!
  • I wish they would just partner with a site like Snopes.com that has already debunked thousands of bogus stories. Alert people before they even press "Post" that the story link they're about to share is a known hoax.
  • That is a great idea.  I don't mind the silly fake videos that people think are legit, but the hoaxes that are political, pseudo-history, or related to important topics like health ("9 reasons why you should never eat fruit again!") are helping to make our society even dumber than it already is. Snopes aready has a lot of the more well known hoaxes covered and it would be mutually beneficial to both Snopes and Facebook.
  • "Facebook finally realizes it's a hoax" That's how it reads, and if you don't get it, keep updating your status. /s
  • LOL
  • How about raising the IQ of the users to detect sarcasm and humor.
  • It's not so much that people are missing sarcasm and humor.  It's people that are falling for conspiracy theories and misinformation that is being created intentionally.  The internet and 24 hour cable news have really lowered the bar for journalism to the point that it's difficult for a lot of people to tell the difference between a credible source and some fool with a blog.  Just ask all the people that think ... "Obama was born in Kenya." "Margerine is one molecule away from plastic." "The flu vaccine has been "proven" to not cure the flu, but the medical field is forcing people to get it anyway." "Chemtrails".
  • While I can easily guess if the post in my news feed is a hoax or a "click-bait" I'd like to welcome this to help clean up the FB feeds. There should also easy "flag down" options on each post.
  • Nice.. Getting tired of seeing those BS theories about the missing MH370.
  • I cut down on the fake stories by not reading facebook. Seems to be working well.
     
  • Share this if your sick of people sharing things all the time...
  • Yea, censorship, especially disguised, is always great and it will be a great day when we all think, feel, and believe the same way. Right? I personally don't want anyone controlling what I see, especially the avg FB user or monolithic, politically correct FB itself. I am perfectly capable of discerning and blocking content I think is crap. FB is on the way to the morgue anyway, it just doesn't know it yet.
  • Right.
  • I may not gonna see sexy pictures?
  • Facebook should start by getting rid of posts my friends like from the news feed. I don't care nor do I want to see what my friends are liking!
  • Start by telling Facebook that you don't wanna see those posts. It stops showing those in the news feed after hiding a few of them.
  • What makes me crazy is the reverse... I don't necessarily want my family to see everything I "like" or every comment I make on someone else's posts. I'm 50+ and I still don't want to share everything with my mom...
  • "Facebook said it would reduce spam posts... You won't believe what happened next!"
  • Hahaha
  • what is auto liker on facebook?
  • You mean all those right wing chain memes will disappear?
  • I hope this helps. I'm sick of my mother calling me and saying stuff like "Look at this young man won the lottery 17 times in a week. Why can't you do that?" "This boy swam 20 miles in one day to reach his sick mother in a hospital. Why don't you swim 20 miles for me?"
  • I feel deep down like this is just a way to further control what users are exposed to and ultimately gain control over our thought processes... We are the dollars and cents... Just a feeling I get from corporations like facebook. Though rationally I feel this feeling is absurd, unless that's exactly WHAT THEY WANT YOU TO THINK!
  • I'd just be happy if family would stop sharing stories that sound interesting but require I "register" on the OP's website to view the story. That.will.never.happen. And mom still wonders why she gets so much junk email...
  • Haha! :P
  • Fb <3