Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Social Media
  3. News

Facebook fights fake news by eliminating the ability to modify links

Hillary K. Grigonis
By

facebook stories on desktop tested sign
Panithan Fakseemuang / 123RF
Facebook is continuing the fight against fake news by making sure users cannot alter a link preview — unless they actually own the website. On Tuesday, the social media company removed the ability for users to alter a link’s metadata or the Facebook link preview — including the headline, description, and image — for everyone but publisher pages.

When sharing a link, Pages used to have the ability to modify how the link appeared, for example, adjusting the headline to better reach the social audience over the page’s actual headline that was crafted with search engine optimization in mind. But, some users were manipulating those same features to change the meaning of the link entirely, contributing to the spread of fake news, particularly when users share the post without actually clicking the link. The feature only adjusted how the post appeared on Facebook — clicking on the link would lead to the original article with the original headline and image.

Recommended Videos

While the change was announced a month ago to prepare Page owners, this week Facebook introduced a tool to help users that relied on those features — and used them to actually alter their own web page links. Now, the Pages Publishing Tools tab has an option for called Link Ownership that allows eligible publishers to continue editing their own links. How? The new publishing tool allows Facebook to determine which websites a Page actually owns.

Related

The new feature is not available to every public Page but is launching for online publishers, including news, sports and entertainment outlets. Facebook says these users largely edit their own link previews in a non-misleading way. Facebook Pages that still fall into these categories, but use the link preview to misrepresent the link’s content or spam other users, will lose access to the tool, the social media company says.

“This tool is another step we’re taking to limit the spread of false news on Facebook,” Alex Hardiman, Facebook Product manager, wrote in a blog post. “We’re committed to supporting publisher workflows, while limiting malicious misrepresentations of underlying link content.”

Facebook says it will continue to improve the new tool over the next few months, based off of feedback from users.

For users, the change will hopefully create fewer fake news pieces floating around that appear to be from a trustworthy source because the link preview was altered — though actually reading a link from the original source before clicking that share button is always a good idea. The feature is part of a long list of updates designed to fight fake news, including a “disputed” tag.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Hillary K. Grigonis
Hillary K. Grigonis
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Hillary never planned on becoming a photographer—and then she was handed a camera at her first writing job and she's been…
Bot or not? A.I. looks at Twitter behavior to sort real accounts from fake
Hand holding a Twitter phone

For the past several years, there’s been heightened concern about the impact of so-called bots on platforms like Twitter. A bot in this context is a fake account synonymous with helping to spread fake news or misinformation online. But how exactly do you tell the difference between an actual human user and a bot? While clues such as the use of the basic default “egg” avatar, a username consisting of long strings of numbers, and a penchant for tweeting about certain topics might provide a few pointers, that’s hardly conclusive evidence.

That’s the challenge a recent project from a pair of researchers at the University of Southern California and University of London set out to solve. They have created an A.I. that’s designed to sort fake Twitter accounts from the real deal, based on their patterns of online behavior.

Read more
Future JPEGs could use blockchain to flag fakes, and A.I. for smaller file sizes
Nikon Z6 Hands-on

Imagine if every JPEG image file had blockchain-protected data that would verify -- or refute -- a photograph’s origins. The concept may be more than just an idea. The same organization that created the JPEG wants to use blockchain to flag fake news and fight image theft.

The Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) is organizing workshops to gain feedback into the possibility of creating a standard blockchain that could both help viewers quickly identify a faked photo and help photographers fight image theft. At the same meeting in Sydney, Australia, the committee began exploring the possibility of creating a new JPEG compression that uses artificial intelligence.

Read more
Facebook hires Reuters to fact-check posts, but politicians can still lie in ads
facebook-under-a-magnifying-glass

Facebook is trying to fight fake news and misinformation on its platform by hiring Reuters to fact-check, but it’s still not verifying political ads.  

The new fact-checking unit at Reuters, which launched on Wednesday, will look at the content posted on Facebook and Instagram and identify when it is fake or misleading. A Reuter’s spokesperson told Digital Trends that the types of posts would include photos, videos, and headlines. Ads are noticeably missing from that list of fact-checked content. 

Read more