Facebook Adding ‘More Info’ Button on News Stories to Fight ‘Fake News’

Facebook is adding a button to provide more information on news stories posted to the social media platform in an attempt to fight “fake news.”

https://www.facebook.com/facebook/videos/10156559267856729/

Facebook is implementing a button alongside news stories posted to the platform that redirects users to a page of information on the publisher of the news story, including “information from the publisher’s Wikipedia entry, a button to follow their Page, trending articles or related articles about the topic, and information about how the article is being shared by people on Facebook.”

Recode reports his information will not be curated by a human team but will be generated automatically by Facebook. The tool purportedly aims to help readers better understand where the news they’re reading comes from and the possible bias of the publisher. Facebook has faced pressure from both the U.S. government and the European Union to closely monitor the content posted to their platform.

In December of 2016, Facebook was warned by the European Union that they must stop “hate speech” on their platform or face harsh punishments, EU Justice Commissioner Věra Jourová told The Financial Times: “If Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Microsoft want to convince me and the ministers that the non-legislative approach can work, they will have to act quickly and make a strong effort in the coming months.” She continued to say, “The last weeks and months have shown that social media companies need to live up to their important role and take up their share of responsibility when it comes to phenomena like online radicalization, illegal hate speech or fake news.”

Facebook has also recently come under fire after it was discovered that Russian-linked sources had purchased approximately $100,000 worth of political ads on the platform during the 2016 presidential election. Facebook claims that most of the advertisements did not contain information about particular political candidates but rather focused on key political issues.