Facebook scraps ‘disputed’ tags after fake news crackdown backfires

Facebook is scrapping its “disputed” tags on potentially fake news stories after finding that the system may have actually further entrenched people’s beliefs, the company said Thursday.

Facebook product designer Jeff Smith, user experience researcher Grace Jackson and content strategist Seetha Raj wrote in a Medium post that after a year of testing the “disputed” flagging system, which was determined by third-party fact-checkers, Facebook decided that including a list of related fact-checking articles on potentially fake news posts was a more effective way of cracking down on the spread of misinformation.

“We learned that dispelling misinformation is challenging,” they wrote. “Just because something is marked as ‘false’ or ‘disputed’ doesn’t necessarily mean we will be able to change someone’s opinion about its accuracy. In fact, some research suggests that strong language or visualizations (like a bright red flag) can backfire and further entrench someone’s beliefs.”

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