Facebook has quietly rolled out its long-awaited solution to fake news

The company alluded to the rollout of the new feature in December past year as a means of filtering out “fake news”.

The flagging system is not a flawless one, but it shows that Facebook is least trying to do something about the problem. Following this review, stories that are found to be inaccurate will be designated with the “disputed” tag.

Fortunately, it would seem that Facebook is also trying to curb the flood of fake news by compiling a list of publications and websites that are repeat offenders. These flagged posts would be deprioritized in news feeds, and if a user tries to share a flagged story, they’ll see a warning cautioning that the story had been disputed. Currently, there is no way to stop these stories from being circulated entirely, but this is the first step in removing them from our timelines and home screens.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was initially dismissive of such accusations, and said it was “pretty crazy” to suggest that fake news on Facebook could have swayed the election results.

But, of course, a Fake News label could be considered too blunt a tool. Or as Facebook calls it: “disputed” news. If Facebook users report a story as fake news, Facebook may then send it to the fact checkers.

Facebook users who try to share a disputed article are asked if they are sure they want to sure it. These fact-checkers will be signatories of the non-partisan Poynter Institute for Media Studies’ Code of Principles.

Late last week, Facebook rolled out a new flagging system in which it will tag fake news as “disputed”. As Mr. Trump continues to rally against the media, declaring reports from reputable outlets such as The New York Times or CNN “fake news”, some of his supporters are following suit.

He wasn’t prevented from sharing the story but when it appeared on his profile, it included a tag showing that what he was sharing had been checked and proven to be false. In the example below, taken from an actual disputed post, the facts were checked, as shown, by PolitiFact and Snopes.com.

However, such a tagging system on Facebook will probably not fix the problem completely.