Some Facebook users attempting to share a story that falsely claims that thousands of Irish were brought to the US as slaves have seen a notification saying that the article has been disputed by Snopes.com and the Associated Press, the Guardian reported.
This is the first time Facebook is publicly testing its "disputed" content alerts, on which it collaborates with external fact-checking organisations. If the user publishes the story despite the notification, it appears on other people’s timelines with a message saying that it has been disputed by fact-checkers.
Tested by the Guardian, the notification appeared for users in San Francisco, but not for those in London or Sydney. Facebook hasn’t confirmed a date for a wider roll-out, but has earlier committed to fight against fake news especially in Germany and France.
The Guardian also refers to some comments that contest the decision to flag the story, but how these notifications will affect users’ behaviour on the whole remains to be seen.