Social media site, Facebook On Thursday, announced its plan to send more potential hoax articles to third-party fact checkers and show their findings below the original post, as part of efforts to tackle so-called fake news.
In a statement on its website, the company said it will start using updated machine learning to detect possible hoaxes and send them to fact checkers, potentially showing fact-checking results under the original article.
Reuters news reports that Facebook has been criticized as being one of the main distribution points for so-called fake news, which many think influenced the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
The issue has also become a big political topic in Europe, with French voters inundated with false stories ahead of the presidential election in May and Germany backing a plan to fine social media networks if they fail to remove hateful postings promptly, ahead of elections in September.
On Thursday, Facebook said in a separate statement in German that a test of the new fact-checking feature was being launched in the United States, France, the Netherlands and Germany.
Writing in a blog, Sara Su, Facebook news feed product manager, said: “In addition to seeing which stories are disputed by third-party fact checkers, people want more context to make informed decisions about what they read and share,”
She added that Facebook would keep testing its “related article” feature and work on other changes to its news feed to cut down on false news.
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