Dec 21, 2017
Facebook ditches fake news warning flag
Facebook no longer displays red warning icons next to fake news stories shared on the platform, as it says the approach has not worked as hoped. In December 2016, the site started showing a "Disputed" warning next to articles that third-party fact checking websites said were fake news. "Academic research on correcting misinformation has shown that putting a strong image, like a red flag, next to an article may actually entrench deeply held beliefs - the opposite effect to what we intended," Facebook's Tessa Lyons wrote in a blog post. Instead of displaying a warning icon in the news feed, it will instead "Surface fact-checked articles" and display them next to disputed stories. Facebook said it had tested the approach and found that although the new approach did not reduce the number of times disputed articles were clicked on, it did lead to them being shared fewer times.
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