Facebook And Instagram Get New Features To Fight Fake News

Fake news can be a huge problem these days in this day and age of social media. This is because of how fast social media posts can spread where they can be shared and reshared hundreds, if not thousands of times in very little time. Of course, not everyone sharing fake news is doing it on purpose.

Some websites and articles have been cleverly designed to make it seem credible, but Facebook wants to help. To combat any potential fake news from being shared on its networks during the 2020 elections, Facebook has announced that they will start to flag posts on Facebook and Instagram that might potentially contain fake news.

According to Facebook, “Over the next month, content across Facebook and Instagram that has been rated false or partly false by a third-party fact-checker will start to be more prominently labeled so that people can better decide for themselves what to read, trust and share. The labels below will be shown on top of false and partly false photos and videos, including on top of Stories content on Instagram, and will link out to the assessment from the fact-checker.”

As you can see in the screenshot above, if you come across a post that has been labelled as such, there is a chance that it might contain false information. Will this help combat the spread of fake news? Unless it’s being shared on purpose, we imagine that these flags and labels should give people some pause.

Tyler Lee
Categories: General
Tags: Facebook, Instagram