Facebook monitors fake news by conducting fact-checking

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Facebook has been criticized for being one of the main distribution points for so-called fake news. Now, the company has started to step up its efforts to fight misleading information.

The social media giant announced on Thursday that it has developed a software algorithm to use updated machine learning to detect more potential hoaxes and send them to third-party fact checkers. If an article has been reviewed by fact-checkers, Facebook may show the fact-checking stories below the original post.

"In addition to seeing which stories are disputed by third-party fact-checkers, people want more context to make informed decisions about what they read and share," Facebook news feed product manager Sara Su said in a blog.

Related Articles on Facebook /Photo via Facebook

The California-based tech company also claimed to continue testing updates to the platform's Related Articles and other ongoing News Feed efforts to show less false news.

On Thursday, Facebook said in a separate statement in German that a test of the new fact-checking feature was being launched in the United States, France, the Netherlands and Germany, Reuters reported.

Facebook has been blamed for allowing fake news to go viral during the US presidential election in 2016. /Photo via AFP

The company is blamed for allowing misleading news to go viral, potentially resulting in misinformed voters in the US presidential election last year. One viral hoax, for example, claimed that the Pope had endorsed Trump, Bloomberg reported.

Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg decided the company should prioritize having informed users after the company was accused of playing a role in the election, according to Bloomberg.

The company doesn’t expect significant change of users' pages by the anti-fake-news algorithm, "pages should continue posting stories that are relevant to their audience," Su said in the Thursday blog post.