Facebook to roll out ‘false information’ labels on Instagram

MANILA, Philippines – Instagram users will soon be alerted to false or misleading content on their feeds.

In a press release about “Helping to protect the 2020 US elections,” published on Monday, October 21, Facebook said that they will roll out a new feature on Facebook and Instagram over the next month that will prominently label misleading information on the platforms. (READ: Facebook exempts political speech from fact-checking)

The labels will be shown on top of the photos or videos, including on Stories content on Instagram, that have been rated false or partially false by Facebook’s 3rd Party Fact Checking (3PFC) partners and will include a link to their assessment of the content.

This, Facebook said, will be so that “people can better decide for themselves what to read, trust, and share.”

Users will also be warned through a pop-up if they are sharing known misinformation on Instagram.

Facebook has already been reducing distribution of known misleading content and accounts on Instagram by removing them from the Explore feed and hashtag pages.

Facebook allowed users to flag misleading content on Instagram in August, but only US-based fact checkers could verify the flagged posts.

Before these new features, Facebook has not been as strict on misinformation on Instagram as they were on the Facebook platform, where misleading content gets reduced distribution on the News Feed. Pages and groups that repeatedly share this kind of content also lose their ability to advertise and monetize.

Rappler is one of Facebook’s 3PFC partners in the Philippines, along with Vera Files and Agence France-Presse Philippines. – Rappler.com