Facebook will reduce the size of fake news link posts and will add fact-checked 'Related Articles' to it

To tackle the problem of fake news, Facebook  had introduced red flags to denote fake news on its platform. It was supposed to divert the user from false news and instead put the attention to the real ones. However, this ended up escalating the problem, where users were sharing stories which were fake due to that red flag. In order to deal with this problem, Facebook has come with another method. [caption id=“attachment_4399209” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. Reuters[/caption] In this new method, if Facebook deems that if a news piece is not true, the visual link card will appear smaller in size. Furthermore, it will be appended with fact-checked links which will follow as Related Articles. But if a story is true or comes from a credible source, then it will be put in a prominent box which will have a large photograph from the story and the headline getting its own space. This is done to make sure that people look at credible sources for information rather than non-credible or fake ones by using the tactic of visual prominence. Stories that are not accurate are shrunk in size so that they are not prominently visible or grab the attention of the user. So how does Facebook make sure that what you are reading is true? According to TechCrunch, Facebook will use both machine learning and human fact checkers to ensure the authenticity of news. It will use machine learning to score the authenticity of a news item. A predictability score for every news piece will be sent to fact checkers for proofing. The social networking giant has assigned 20 fact checkers in each country. These fact checkers will proof on the basis of the following. Firstly, account creation where fact checkers will check if the account has been created under a fake name. Secondly, pages or accounts that have been created by the same domain name will be removed. Thirdly, removing pages or accounts that have markers to show that it is being used for a fraudulent or malicious activity. And lastly, images are screened using machine learning to find if there are any signs of risk. Facebook has also begun ranking stories that are fake. One can only hope that this method does tackle the problem of fake news.