We’ve been subject to a slew of fake stories on social media as of late. It’s alarming when these stories that are used to spread misinformation, or just want to get a rise out of people, get passed along like wildfire and are soon accepted as truth. You’ve seen one or two stories from us about Facebook wanting to combat the spread of these “news” items and now they’ve found the right partners to help manage the virality of these stories by informing the general public that these articles are “disputed”.
Facebook has teamed up with fact-checking organizations: Snopes, FactCheck.org, and Politifact in the battle against these false news stories that have been carefully crafted to get a rise out of us. We still have to play our part by reporting these posts and it is then when these third-party players will start to do their work. If they find that a story is found to be false, a warning will then appear on your feed, and then again when you try to share the article in question, saying that it is either debunked or disputed.
Not only is Facebook trying to stop the spread of these news stories, but they’re trying to go after the sites behind them as well and cut off the money they make from ad revenues.
Source: Ad Age, Washington Post
