Facebook has recently announced it will prioritise news sources that are more trustworthy in its News Feed. this will be done by filtering what it deems are reliable news sources via a user survey.
This latest move is an attempt by Facebook to stem the flow of the so-called fake news and propaganda that is said to exist on its network. The change is also said to be an attempt to shift key judgements over bias and accuracy away from Facebook’s employees.
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“We could try to make that decision ourselves, but that’s not something we’re comfortable with,” Mr Zuckerberg said.
“We considered asking outside experts, which would take the decision out of our hands but would likely not solve the objectivity problem. Or we could ask you – the community – and have your feedback determine the ranking.”
Users will be asked onto whether or not they recognize the news brand via the surveys, but this theory hasn’t been tested by Facebook at large yet as there are many outlying factors such as smaller media outlets that the public deems broadly trustworthy thus skewing data.
Thus far, this news ranking system will be first tested in the United States only, and the results will not be shown to the public. Obviously, the staple news outlets will be highly favoured as their histories are long reaching. These are media powerhouses like New York Times, BBC, CNN, Reuters and many more.
The clear victims from this ranking system will be sites like Buzzfeed or VT which rely on viral content to keep them going, as they will not be deemed as reliable a news source as others.