Facebook to Rank News Sources by Quality to Battle Misinformation
Tech giant will rely on user surveys of trustworthiness to try to preserve objectivity
The social-media giant will begin testing the effort next week by prioritizing news reports in its news feed from publications that users have rated in Facebook surveys as trustworthy, executives said Friday. The most “broadly trusted” publications—those trusted and recognized by a large cross-section of Facebook users—would get a boost in the news feed, while those that users rate low on trust would be penalized... This shift will result in news accounting for about 4% of the posts that appears in users’ feeds world-wide, down from the current 5%.. About 45% of U.S. adults get news from Facebook.. Mr. Zuckerberg said the change—which will be tested leading up to the 2018 U.S. midterm elections—is necessary to address the role of social media in amplifying sensationalism, misinformation and polarization. “That’s why it’s important that News Feed promotes high quality news that helps build a sense of common ground,” he wrote in his post... He compared the approach with Facebook’s reliance on third-party fact-checkers to determine whether or not an article is completely fabricated... On Friday, some publishers and media observers expressed concern about the ranking change, which, like other Facebook news-feed changes may have a significant and unpredictable impact on news publishers that rely on the site for traffic, including the Journal.
.. Facebook’s trust score would boost the news-feed presence of well-known and widely trusted publications even if users disagree with the content or aren’t avid readers.