While initially shrugging off the idea that fake news influenced the election, the social network has now vowed to “take misinformation seriously” with outlined plans to combat it.
Facebook has stated that it's working with fact-checking groups to identify bogus stories — and to warn users about any story that has been reported as fake.
It will also allow users to report a possible hoax by clicking the upper right hand corner of a post and choosing one of four reasons to flag it — "It's a spam" or "It's a fake news story."
Albeit, Facebook users can still choose to ignore the warning and share the post, even as users who attempt to share the fake news will receive warning that the article's accuracy has been disputed by third-party fact checkers.
The new feature which essentially is tackling the fake-news issue through crowd-sourcing, will rely more on users help to flag a story as potentially bogus, "along with other signals."
And ultimately, the flagged stories will be rejected if anyone tries to turn it into a promoted ad on Facebook.
