Facebook rolls out ‘disputed’ tag for fake stories in US

Gelo Gonzales

This is AI generated summarization, which may have errors. For context, always refer to the full article.

Facebook rolls out ‘disputed’ tag for fake stories in US
The tagging system, which is handled by third-party fact-checkers, is only available in the United States for now

MANILA, Philippines – Facebook began slapping a “disputed” tag on stories that its system deems fake on Friday, March 3, US time.

The feature is currently only available in the US, where the 2016 elections were thought to have been swayed by fake stories appearing on the social network. After the polls, Facebook finally said it’d take steps to clean up its site, but only after much badgering from critics and observers. 

The “disputed” tag appears on a Facebook post with a red warning sign featuring an exclamation point and a message saying that it has been disputed by a third-party fact-checker such as Snopes.com and Politifact. All fact-checkers are signatories of the “code of principles” prepared by journalism non-profit organization Poynter. 

For a story to go under fact-checking, Facebook users have to report it as fake news or Facebook’s system must detect something odd about it. Once it meets either criteria, the story is forwarded to the fact-checkers who will then decide whether to slap the “Disputed” label or not.

“Disputed” stories will stay on the feed, albeit with links to debunkers from the participating organizations, according to US site Gizmodo. The site posted some examples it saw on its feed.

The measure, with its current processes, does not appear to be something that can label fake stories as fast as their propagators can pump them out. It will not likely be the panacea that will make misinformation vanish on social media once and for all. But at the very least, people have a visual tag to look for that’s supported by expert organizations – and one that should influence whether they spread an article or not. 

The coming months will tell whether the tag will be able to deal with the magnitude by which misinformation has taken root on the platform.

Facebook has not released information about the tagging system’s release in other regions. – Rappler.com

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Gelo Gonzales

Gelo Gonzales is Rappler’s technology editor. He covers consumer electronics, social media, emerging tech, and video games.