Combating fake news, Facebook tests feature that rates user trustworthiness

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As per Lyons, “A user’s trustworthiness score isn’t meant to be an absolute indicator of a person’s credibility, nor is there a single unified reputation score that users are assigned.” Instead, she explained that Facebook will look at behavioural clues as well, before it plans actions on bad actors, and publishers of fake news. Lyons was also reported saying there will be multiple reputation scores assigned to users depending on their tendency towards flagging content. Here, Facebook will consider both sides: the rating of trustworthy publishers, as well as of malicious actors.

Facebook’s latest move towards countering fake news comes as the social media platform looks to filter publishers on the basis of credibility. Twitter has also been cracking down on bots and individual accounts, that have been known to promote fake news and abusive content.