Facebook Changes Tactics In Fight Against Fake News With Related Articles

As one of the biggest challenges for internet users, the fight against fake news can feel like a lost cause. However, Facebook appears adamant in at least reducing the presence of fraudulent information on its platform. To this end, it’s changing its tactics from using a blunt instrument to more psychologically subversive methods that involve giving users different information from what they usually get.

The social network just announced that it would stop using its Disputed Flags tool in its campaign against fake news. Apparently, the method had a tendency to backfire by basically making people more entrenched in their misguided commitment to their own narrative and also presented the risk of burying key information that’s crucial to revealing the truth. Instead, Facebook will be using its Related Articles tool.

“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. Related Articles, by contrast, are simply designed to give more context, which our research has shown is a more effective way to help people get to the facts. Indeed, we’ve found that when we show Related Articles next to a false news story, it leads to fewer shares than when the Disputed Flag is shown,” Facebook wrote in a blog post.

This might seem like a small development, but it’s a more tactical approach than simply bludgeoning people into accepting that a news article was false. This is in addition to another tactic that Facebook is using, which is demoting posts that contain misinformation, The Verge reports. Facebook is essentially trying to choke the life out of the publications and websites that are making money off of spreading fake news by cutting off their lifeblood, which is ad revenue.