【Watch Mound Daughter】

Facebook is Watch Mound Daughterfinally starting to make good on its promise to fight fake news with technology.

The company introduced a series of updates on Thursday that are aimed at preventing the spread of hoaxes as well as false and misleading news. The changes are part of what Facebook says are still "early experiments" in its efforts to reduce the presence of fake news on the service, and for now they're rolling out only to a small percentage of Facebook users in the U.S.

The experiments include: a new tool that let users flag posts specifically as fake news, labels that show when a story has been marked as "disputed" by a third-party fact-checking organization, changes to the News Feed algorithm, and a crackdown on spammers who spread fake news with the intention of pocketing ad revenue.

SEE ALSO: 7 signs the news you’re sharing is fake

Together, these updates -- the first specific product changes Facebook has publicly revealed since the election threw fake news into the national spotlight -- are aimed at curtailing the "worst of the worst" offenders while "engaging both our community and third-party organizations," according to Facebook's vice president of product for News Feed, Adam Mosseri.

On the reporting side, those who are part of Facebook's test will be able to choose "fake news" as a reason for reporting a link that's been shared in their News Feed or elsewhere on Facebook. The new reporting flow works much the same way as you report spam or other objectionable content.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Under the test, if a post is reported enough times, it'll trigger a new type of review process. Unlike posts that are flagged and reviewed by Facebook contractors and employees as part of the network's normal process, the company is working with third-party fact-checking organizations to review posts that are specifically flagged as fake news stories.

These organizations, all part of Poynter's International Fact Checking Network, will review posts that are flagged as fake. If the fact-checkers agree, the posts can then be given a red label noting the story is disputed by third-party fact-checkers. The label will also link to a relevant source that explains why it is fake.

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Facebook will also prevent posts labeled as fake news from being turned into an ad, and stories marked as "disputed" will be ranked lower in News Feed.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Facebook is making another tweak to the News Feed algorithm that will rank posts lower when "people who read the article are significantly less likely to share it." This, Mosseri says, can be a good indicator "that a story has misled people in some way."

Finally, the social network is taking steps to reduce the spread of posts that link to fake stories from websites disguised to look like legitimate media organizations. These legitimate-sounding sites, not only spread fake news, according to Facebook, but often directly profit off the misinformation they spread as the websites they link tend to be littered with ads.

Though the company is stopping short of outright banning these accounts entirely, Facebook is attempting to weed them out of its ad platform, which already prohibits fake news and misleading information. Part of those efforts will include banning "disputed" news sites from its ad network (Facebook has previously discussed similar plans). The company is also "analyzing publisher sites" to better learn how to enforce its policies.

While all of the updates are in line with the strategy previously outlined by Mark Zuckerberg, they represent the most significant steps Facebook has taken yet to fight the spread of misinformation on its platform.

A hoax or fake news story with a sensationalist headline can easily go viral long before third parties have a chance to debunk it.

Still, critics will likely contend these changes, which will only be seen by a handful of users to start, don't go far enough. As several media outlets have pointed out, a hoax or fake news story with a sensationalist headline can easily go viral long before third parties have a chance to debunk it. And debunking stories, even from respected organizations, seldom have the reach of the original false post.

Moreover, relying on a handful of organizations to manually fact-check and debunk fake news and hoaxes is hardly an approach that could scale to Facebook's 1 billion+ users.

It's possible Facebook is planning to internalize some of these processes once they get farther along in its testing. (The company is currently in the market for an "experienced news executive" to lead its Global News Partnerships team.) Or the fact checkers could be a temporary measure until Facebook's AI is smart enough to recognize fake news on its own.

But even as the company remains tight-lipped about how these tests will shape future plans to fight fake news, the company has in recent weeks repeatedly emphasized its commitment to the issue that's stirred so much controversy even President Obama has weighed in.

"We're going to keep working on this problem for as long as it takes to get it right,"Mosseri said.

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