Fake news stories have always existed for a wide array of reasons. Sometimes someone just wants to badmouth a person or company; sometimes it’s just for laughs. Regardless what the reason behind it Facebook has had enough and they want these fake stories gone from your newsfeeds.

141001133520-fake-facebook-story-horizontal-large-galleryThat said Facebook is introducing a new feature that lets you report a story as being fake, and if enough other people do the same, the power of crowd sourcing means the story will be culled.

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To reduce the number of these types of posts, News Feed will take into account when many people flag a post as false. News Feed will also take into account when many people choose to delete posts. This means a post with a link to an article that many people have reported as a hoax or chosen to delete will get reduced distribution in News Feed. This update will apply to posts including links, photos, videos and status updates.

For those of you worried about satirical posts, Facebook has stated that you should be safe.

We’ve found from testing that people tend not to report satirical content intended to be humorous, or content that is clearly labeled as satire. This type of content should not be affected by this update.

Published by Michael Boguslavskiy

Michael Boguslavskiy is a full-stack developer & online presence consultant based out of New York City. He's been offering freelance marketing & development services for over a decade. He currently manages Rapid Purple - and online webmaster resources center; and Media Explode - a full service marketing agency.

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