New Facebook Feature Allows Users to Flag “Fake News”

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Photo Courtesy of TechCrunch.com

The moderators for the Fox News Facebook page are about to have their hands full!

Yesterday, direct from Facebook’s official ‘Newsroom’ came the announcement that a new feature has been added giving users the ability to report or “flag” a post they believe to be a ‘hoax’ or ‘scam’ news story. We’ve all seen these ridiculous posts; “Groundbreaking Scientific Evidence that Dinosaurs Exist!” or the almost daily false reports of celebrity deaths. It usually only takes a smidgen of common sense or awareness to sniff out a fake news story, but if I had a dollar for every time friends re-post those stories about Facebook starting to charge users, I could afford to buy a majority stake in Facebook and maybe even Google too.

In browsing over the official announcement from Facebook, it seems they wanted to make it clear that they would not be completely removing posts or reviewing the authenticity of every post that is reported. Rather, they said the feature will work on a type of sliding scale: the more a story is flagged or deleted by users, the less it will appear in the News Feed. If this sounds familiar, it’s because there is the pre-existing feature to flag posts that are excessively violent, racist, or pornographic. The image below, provided by Facebook, shows the box that will pop up allowing users to select exactly why they are suspicious of the post:

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Photo Courtesy of Facebook

They also did not specify numbers and thresholds: exactly how many complaints it will take in relation to how limited the post will become in the News Feed is unclear. However, they did note that posts with the most complaints of fraudulent or misleading news will receive an official annotation from Facebook:

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Photo Courtesy of Facebook

For those of us that enjoy the satire of “The Onion” and similar sites, there’s no need to fret. Specifically outlined in Facebook’s announcement is the following: “stories that include scams, or deliberately misleading news, are reported two and a half times more often than links to other news stories.” In other words, it’s more likely that the annoying, obvious fakes will be shoo-shooed and the humorous satires will remain.

All jokes aside this is an important move for Facebook, especially in this day and age. While some of us (well, all of us) view these types of ‘hoax’ stories as no more than a nuisance, it’s important to realize the role they play in the up-to-the-second news cycle of which we are all a part of. The first major transition of news consumption came along with the advent of the almighty Internet. What we must be conscious of is we are both consumers and contributors within the second drastic overhaul of the news cycle, because this new-wave depends more on social media than ever before.

Reliable sources such as CNN, AP, and Reuters are still breaking reliable stories every day, but most of us now look to the Twitter and Facebook accounts of those reliable sources when something big goes down. Anybody with a social media account can spread a reliably sourced story just as quickly as these problematic counterfeit posts. This isn’t necessarily a new phenomenon, it’s safe to say it began when Twitter and Facebook really exploded, but in the context of history I believe this is the time period that will be looked upon as ‘when it all started’. In that sense, I think Facebook is coming through just in time with a feature like this and it should prove itself effective in weeding out those pesky posers.

 

Ben Dunham-Kapaldo is a 22-year old senior attending college in Upstate New York. Originally from a small town in Maine, he began his secondary education as a football player in college first and a student in college second. After realizing that wasn't a recipe for success, Ben straightened out his priorities and was recently named to the school's Fall 2014 Dean's List. For the past two years, Ben has contributed articles for the school newspaper and was promoted to an editorial position for the 2014-2015 academic year. After graduation he hopes to work in the research division of an advertising firm or become a full-time journalist.