The war against counterfeit news seems to have no end. Facebook continues to seek effective methods to at least reduce the spread of such untruthful information. Between trial and error, the company hopes to get it right sometime.
Some time ago, the social network started to mark with a red alert the links checked as untrue information. However, this eventually attracted the attention of users to click on those articles, obtaining an effect opposite of what was expected.
Now, in addition to including articles related to checks that show that link as incorrect information, Facebook will proceed to punish those posts in another way – reducing the size of the featured image.
The social network hopes that this time with links to false information will be less clicked and shared, preventing the spread of false news as it will be somewhat less visible. Together, the company announced some more news to try to combat fake news.
Facebook will also use artificial intelligence to streamline the information verification process. Thus, links with more signs of containing false information should be detected more quickly, allowing them to be checked and punished before they spread.
According to the company, these new features can reduce the reach of fake news by up to 80%. Experience indicates that more methods should be needed, as each new ad promises to reduce reach, but the problem insists.
Recent research has shown that family groups are the largest vector for spreading the false news on the network, which indicates that a person tends to believe in information passed by someone they trust, regardless of the original source of the information.
The spread of false news is already considered a crime in Malaysia, for example, while France is moving to bring law to the same effect.
