Facebook to ditch ‘Disputed Flags’ option on News Feed

Published on December 23, 2017

Social media giant, Facebook announced two significant changes on Thursday, 21st December 2017. The firm to curb the spread of misinformation on their platform made the first move to its News Feed. Under the New Feed section, Facebook users will no longer be able to view ‘Disputed Flags’ or a series of red badges that used to help them identify whether the information was authentic. The ‘Disputed Flags’ setting was made through the help and support of third-party fact-checkers hired especially by Facebook. This particular setting is being replaced by the option of providing relevant links to other articles providing authentic information.

Facebook to ditch ‘Disputed Flags’ option on News Feed

According to a report by Tech Crunch, Facebook through the help of its new initiative hopes that its users will now have an easy time understanding different types of news information and how true or false they are. It appears like the new change is merely a part of many experiments that Facebook usually conducts. The social media giant is known to carry out several changes to gauge whether their attempts are effective at curbing the spread of fake news on their platform.

Facebook has been a subject of scrutiny by critics for long. The social networking platform is accused of not doing enough to combat fake news within its application. Articles by ‘troll farms’ are freely being distributed on Facebook and there isn’t much that they are doing to ensure that they stop.

This has majorly impacted the influence of most users for that matter. This issue gained widespread attention during the 2016 U.S. Presidential elections. Since then, the company has been doing all that it possibly can to implement several changes to fight the spread of fake news. This includes more natural steps to report articles, partnerships with fact-checking, organizations and features.

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