In order to combat fake news, the company has been ranking “trusted” sources and demoting “engagement bait” stories. Last year in October, the company began testing a feature that would provide information on article publishers to help people make the decision if it’s worth reading, trusting and sharing.
Now that the company has gone through a period of testing, it is now starting to roll out the feature for everyone in the US, as well as two more options to give you more context when you see a story in your news feed. The company says that its research has shown people can evaluate the credibility of articles available online.
“Based on this research,” Facebook writes in the blog post, “we’re making it easy for people to view context about an article, including the publisher’s Wikipedia entry, related articles on the same topic, information about how many times the article has been shared on Facebook, where it is has been shared, as well as an option to follow the publisher’s page.” If the publisher doesn’t have a Wikipedia entry, Facebook will say it doesn’t to provide more valuable information.
Aside from this, users will also start seeing “More From This Publisher” and “Shared By Friends” in their experience. The former will provide a quick look at other stories that were recently published by the said source and the latter will show which friends have shared the article you’re reading. The company is continuing to learn which information is needed to help people evaluate the credibility of articles.
Facebook’s team says that it designed these new features rom the feedback that they obtained and input given by a diverse set of people and publishers, including those in the Facebook Journalism Project. The company has promised to improved upon this experience in the future and bring more features and assistance about news on the platform.
