New Delhi:
Social media platform Facebook, in its latest attempt to control the spreading of incorrect information, has announced that it will ask two billion users to rank their trust in news.
The change comes after the online site accepts that incorrect information was being spread on the platform ahead of the 2016 US Presidential elections. The CEO of the company, Mark Zuckerberg, took to the social networking site and said there is too much sensationalism which needed to be curbed.
His long-written Facebook post came days after an announcement was made by him over the filtering of the News Feed so that users get posts related to their friends and family as priority.
He wrote in his post, “There's too much sensationalism, misinformation and polarization in the world today. Social media enables people to spread information faster than ever before, and if we don't specifically tackle these problems, then we end up amplifying them. That's why it's important that News Feed promotes high quality news that helps build a sense of common ground.”
The new ranking with “trusted sources” will start in the next week, which will aim at high quality news and will build a sense of common ground, as per Zuckerberg.
Zuckerberg also said, “We could try to make that decision ourselves, but that’s not something we’re comfortable with. We considered asking outside experts, which would take the decision out of our hands but would likely not solve the objectivity problem.”
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“This update will not change the amount of news you see on Facebook. It will only shift the balance of news you see towards sources that are determined to be trusted by the community,” he said.
David Chavern, head of industry group News Media Alliance, said in a statement, “For some time, we have argued that Facebook should give priority to news from trusted sources. This would be positive for consumers, as well as help to address ‘fake news’ issues.”
“My hope is that this update about trusted news and last week’s update about meaningful interactions will help make time on Facebook time well spent,” said Mark Zuckerberg.
