Providing new details about how it's trying to counter the spread of fake news on its services, Facebook says it's working with fact-checking groups to identify bogus stories -- and to warn users if a story they're trying to share has been reported as fake.
Facebook also says it will let users report a possible hoax by clicking the upper-right corner of a post and choosing one of four reasons they want to flag it -- from "It's spam" to "It's a fake news story."
If a story is deemed false, it will be tagged with an alert message saying it's been "disputed by 3rd party fact-checkers."
The social media giant was sharply criticized after the Nov. 8 election, as false stories were blamed for adding confusion to a dynamic campaign season. Since then, fake news and conspiracy theories were also identified as a motivating factor in a man's assault on a pizza restaurant in Washington, D.C.
In the wake of that and other stories, some called for Facebook to hire editors to vet news stories; in today's update from Facebook's vice president in charge of its News Feed feature, Adam Mosseri, the company could be seen to be effectively outsourcing that job to third-party groups that it says have signed on to Poynter's International Fact Checking Code of Principles.