Facebook abandons an attempt to curb fake news. Here’s why

Facebook is throwing away “disputed flags,” one of its several attempts to curb the spread of fake news across the social network.

About a year ago, Facebook launched the feature, where red flag icons were put next to articles that were identified to be false by a team of independent fact-checking organizations.

But according to Facebook’s research, the effort didn’t help much. Facebook’s team identified four reasons that disputed flags were not an ideal strategy, as shared in a blog post on Medium.

Buried critical information a.k.a. required too many clicks
Could sometimes backfire because strong language or visuals can reinforce ideas
Required at least two fact-checkers so was a slow process to be applied
Only worked for false ratings so stories that were partly false or unproven were not marked Read more…