[imagesource: Facebook]

Facebook has, albeit far too slowly, started taking a stronger start against the spread of fake news.

The social networking site upped the ante in the battle against misinformation when it introduced message forwarding limits on Messenger and encouraged users to read an article before sharing it, putting warning labels on fake news.

They did this particularly around the COVID-19 pandemic and all the fake news that spread from it.

In the latest step towards battling fake news, Facebook is including measures that call out pages for repeatedly spreading fake news.

Via Mashable, as soon as you try and like a questionable page, you’ll see a pop-up that warns how the page has “repeatedly shared false information,” and that “independent fact-checkers said the information is false.”

You will then have the choice of going back to the previous page or following the page anyway:

There will also be a “learn more” link which will provide some more info on why this page has been labeled as a such, as well as another “learn more” link which will provide more info on Facebook’s fact-checking program.

Image: Facebook

Individual Facebook accounts will also incur penalties if they repeatedly share misinformation.

The penalty will be less visibility on other people’s News Feeds.

Users will also be notified that posts from these pages that repeatedly share fake news will be positioned lower in the News Feed, making it less likely for everyone else to see them, too.

This is all good news for the fight against fake news, but the social media company and others out there have a long way to go until it’s a job well done.

[source:mashable]