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Facebook had earlier quipped about its intentions to bring down fake news following criticism for its role in spreading demonstrably false stories ahead of the U.S. presidential election. Now, the social network has rolled out, "Disputed Tag", a new flagging system for fake news which tags hoax stories as “disputed” using non-partisan third parties to assess the factual accuracy of stories.

Initially, Facebook declined that the spread of fake news on the social network could have influenced the election, but subsequently acknowledged the possible role of engineered misinformation.

While the system seems to be transparent, as only stories, not entire sites, are flagged and may continue to appear on the social network, albeit with links to debunkers from participating organizations like Snopes and Politifact.

And after a story is flagged as disputed, it will be reviewed by the third-party fact-checkers, if proven to be a fake news story, then it would be labelled as hoax in the News Feed.

Additionally, Facebook is compiling a list of web domains that have been notorious for spreading fake news so that it is automatically flagged.

Facebook has also made it easier to report a hoax if you find one in the News Feed by clicking on the upper right-hand corner of a post and tapping on “It’s a fake news story.”

The new feature is currently rolling out, and every Facebook user should be able to see it in the coming weeks.

How Facebook "Disputed Tag" Tool helps combat Hoax stories

Facebook had earlier quipped about its intentions to bring down fake news following criticism for its role in spreading demonstrably false stories ahead of the U.S. presidential election. Now, the social network has rolled out, "Disputed Tag", a new flagging system for fake news which tags hoax stories as “disputed” using non-partisan third parties to assess the factual accuracy of stories.

Initially, Facebook declined that the spread of fake news on the social network could have influenced the election, but subsequently acknowledged the possible role of engineered misinformation.

While the system seems to be transparent, as only stories, not entire sites, are flagged and may continue to appear on the social network, albeit with links to debunkers from participating organizations like Snopes and Politifact.

And after a story is flagged as disputed, it will be reviewed by the third-party fact-checkers, if proven to be a fake news story, then it would be labelled as hoax in the News Feed.

Additionally, Facebook is compiling a list of web domains that have been notorious for spreading fake news so that it is automatically flagged.

Facebook has also made it easier to report a hoax if you find one in the News Feed by clicking on the upper right-hand corner of a post and tapping on “It’s a fake news story.”

The new feature is currently rolling out, and every Facebook user should be able to see it in the coming weeks.
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