Facebook said Tuesday it would step up efforts to limit
circulation of bogus "news stories" in user feeds, saying it is an
annoyance for members of the huge social network.
"We've
heard from people that they want to see fewer stories that are hoaxes, or
misleading news," said Facebook's Erich Owens and Udi Weinsberg in a blog
post.
"Hoaxes
are a form of News Feed spam that includes scams ('Click here to win a lifetime
supply of coffee'), or deliberately false or misleading news stories ('Man sees
dinosaur on hike in Utah')."
The
Facebook researchers said people "often share these hoaxes and later
decide to delete their original posts after they realize they have been
tricked."
An
update to Facebook's News Feed will aim to limit the spread of posts that have
been reported as hoaxes and adds an a warning to messages that have been
flagged as suspicious.
Facebook
has also added an option that allows its users to report a "false news
story" being circulated.
The
social network said the update "reduces the distribution" of these
posts but does not eliminate them.
"We
are not removing stories people report as false and we are not reviewing
content and making a determination on its accuracy," the blog post said.
The
update aims to steer clear of any effort to cut down on satirical news.
"We've
found from testing that people tend not to report satirical content intended to
be humorous, or content that is clearly labeled as satire. This type of content
should not be affected by this update," the blog said.
"The
vast majority of publishers on Facebook will not be impacted by this update. A
small set of publishers who are frequently posting hoaxes and scams will see
their distribution decrease."
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