Facebook to demote website links having stolen content in the News Feed: Report

**Facebook** will now automatically demote spammy website links which feature stolen content from other websites, or publications, which appear in users News Feed. We already know how the company, in the past few years, has been altering its platform so that posts get ranked in a fashion that you see your friends’ and family members’ updates, or the things you like and follow, before anything else. On 16 October, the platform told the publication TechCrunch that they have a new system which checks the authenticity of the content posted by websites, verifies click-bait-like headlines, and also checks if the landing pages have low-quality advertisements. [caption id=“attachment_5032301” align=“alignnone” width=“1280”] Facebook app on iOS.[/caption] The logic is, that if links with stolen content are pushed down the ranks, the traffic that they receive will be less. This will lead to less traffic on that page, and therefore less ad revenue. “Crooks” on the internet will thus not have enough incentive to post plagiarised content. But will they really stop? While it’s a good idea to downrank spam-like content, it might not be enough to prevent people from posting such content. Facebook had written in an addendum, in its blog post from last year about demoting sites which were filled with ads. The 16 October update read, “Starting today, we’re rolling out an update so people see fewer posts that link out to low-quality sites that predominantly copy and republish content from other sites without providing unique value. We are adjusting our Publisher Guidelines accordingly.”