Facebook has been working on clamping down on fake news published to its platform, and now it looks like they’ll be going after fake news posts shared on Instagram as well. While Instagram might not necessarily have the same fake news problem as Facebook, the fact that it is a social media platform means that it gives users a place to potentially spread fake news.So much so that in the future, Instagram is expected to start demoting posts that are deemed to be spreading bad information. This will be based on fact-checks done by journalism nonprofit Poynter. In a statement made to the website by Instagram spokeswoman Stephanie Otway, “Our approach to misinformation is the same as Facebook’s — when we find misinfo, rather than remove it, we’ll reduce its distribution.”
This means that posts that are deemed to contain false or misleading information will be removed from the Explore tab on Instagram and also hashtag result pages. This means that while the post is technically still active, it will be much more difficult to find, thus minimizing its impact on users.
Facebook and Instagram aren’t alone in this. WhatsApp, also owned by Facebook, has been updated where forwarded messages are labeled as such so that users know that it might have come from other sources. It has also gotten image search tools to help users fact-check images for themselves.
Filed in . Read more about Facebook and Instagram. Source: mashable