Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) has introduced an initiative aimed at combating what it calls “fake news” in the United States. The initiative will see news stories that are suspected of being false by organizations involved in so-called “fact-checking” being tagged as ‘disputed’.  Some of the organizations that Facebook will use in its fact-checking mission include Politifact and Snopes.

Help page

To demonstrate how the disputed news feature works, a help page has been added by Facebook. Fact-checkers will, for instance, have to agree to abide by a certain code which has been written by a nonprofit that is geared towards helping the cause of journalism. The fact-checkers must agree to be nonpartisan and to be transparent about their sources of funding as well as information sources.

Facebook users will also be able to find out why a story was tagged as disputed by just hovering and clicking on the story. Alternatively, users can also visit the website of the fact-checker.

While the feature is welcome given the proliferation of fake news claims during the 2016 U.S. general election, it is not clear how a news story that has been disputed will be treated by the ranking algorithms of Facebook. Though there should be reduced likelihood of users sharing stories that have been marked as disputed and thereby limiting their spread, the flagging system sometimes takes too long to go into effect giving enough time for a fake news story to circulate.

Political polarization

The new feature is also unlikely to satisfy everyone especially as the political field continues to get more and more polarized. Already, the development has been criticized strongly by conservatives and this could alienate a big chunk of users of Facebook. Also, being overly aggressive against fake news may not be in the business interests of Facebook since it could result in lower user engagement which translates to reduced advertising revenues.

Besides the new disputed news tag, Facebook is also understood to be building a database containing information of websites that have made a name for themselves as fake news outlets.

On Friday shares of Facebook rose by 0.30% to close the day at $137.17.