Nobody can escape fake news on the web. Rather than completely obliterating them from existence which is impossible for Facebook, the social giant opt to shrink them instead.
Here, Facebook is making fake news posts in users' News Feed difficult to see by shrinking the size of their links. Facebook will only do this when the content the link is directing, has been verified by third-party fact-checkers as inaccurate.
"We reduce the visual prominence of feed stories that are fact-checked false," said a Facebook spokesperson.
According to screenshots by TechCrunch, contents that are inaccurate will show on mobile as a headline and image that occupy only a single small row. On the other hand, accurate and legitimate news will have a large picture and are considerably more noticeable.
Facebook has done so many things to combat misleading information on its platform. From removing false accounts and assets like fraudulently created Pages, limiting the distributions of false reports, blocking ads on malicious Pages and so forth.
And by shrinking fake news, Facebook is making them less visible, hoping that they will be less likely to be clicked or shared. Facebook has been reluctant to eliminate fake news sites directly, fearing the company will be seen as taking an editorial stance it has so far avoided.
Read: Google And Facebook In Fighting Fake News: Not Without Their Own Problems
To moderate contents, the social giant also leverages AI and feedback from users flagging posts.
"We use machine learning to help predict things that might be more likely to be false news, to help prioritize material we send to fact-checkers (given the large volume of potential material)," said a Facebook spokesperson.
Back in December 2017, Facebook announced that it would no longer use Disputed Flags to identify fake news and would instead use its Related Articles.