Facebook have stepped up their efforts to combat fake news by introducing a new third party feature to alert users to disputed content.
The social media giant announced at the end of last year that it would be partnering with independent fact checkers to clamp down on the spread of misinformation and users caught the first glimpse of what that might look like in recent days.
According to The Guardian, the tool was first observed by users attempting to like a story about the Irish slave trade in the run up to St. Patrick's Day.
For some users, attempting to share the story prompted a red alert stating the article had been disputed by both Snopes.com and the Associated Press. Clicking on that warning produced a second pop-up with more information “About disputed content”.
Users who choose to ignore the warning and click "publish" will receive another pop up warning that it has been disputed. Users can still "post anyway" if they wish but the post will show up on other people's timelines accompanied by the "Disputed by Snopes.com and Associated Press" label.
It seems that Facebook are just testing the feature amongst a small number of users currently before deciding whether or not to roll it out to all users going forward.
