March 29, 2024
Facebook to ask users to rank news outlets they trust
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Friday the social media site will ask its users to rank the news organizations they trust.

Zuckerberg said the changes are part of efforts to ensure news organizations that are trustworthy, as well as news that is informative and local, are prioritized in the News Feeds of its 2 billion users. The goal, he said, is to “make sure the news you see, while less overall, is high quality.”

“There’s too much sensationalism, misinformation, and polarization in the world today,” Zuckerberg said. “Social media enables people to spread information faster than ever before, and if we don't specifically tackle these problems, then we end up amplifying them. That's why it's important that News Feed promotes high quality news that helps build a sense of common ground.”

Zuckerberg said Facebook will be asking users to decide whether they’re familiar with a news organization and whether they trust that source, if they do know of it. This information will impact an outlet's ranking in the News Feed.

“The idea is that some news organizations are only trusted by their readers or watchers, and others are broadly trusted across society even by those who don’t follow them directly,” he said.

The latest changes to the New Feed won’t change the amount of news that users see on the platform, but it will change the balance of news users see, as decided by whether they have been rated as trustworthy.

Facebook rolled out other changes to the News Feed earlier this week designed to lessen the amount of news that appears. (Source: The Washington Examiner)
Story Date: January 21, 2018
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