Facebook Adding 'Satire' Tags to Fake News




Don't get duped: Facebook has added "satire" badges to links that appear in the "related articles" box.



Facebook appears to be testing a new feature that clearly marks sarcastic news stories from sites like The Onion with a "satire" tag, lest users confuse headlines like "Busch Gardens Unveils New 9,600-Mile-Long Endurance Coaster" with a serious article.

Ars Technica first noticed the addition, which shows up only in the "related articles" box that appears once you've clicked a friend's link.

For instance, once you've checked out an Onion story shared by a friend and returned to Facebook, you'll see a list of "related articles" below, typically with at least one essay from the same site. Only now, some users may see the word "satire" in brackets ahead of the headline.

Ars managed to duplicate the result on three different computers, using three different Facebook accounts. PCMag found the same result (pictured) when tested.



Facebook did not immediately respond to PCMag's request for comment, but a spokesman confirmed to Ars that a "small test," based on user feedback, showed "that people wanted a clearer way to distinguish satirical articles from others in these [related links] units."

According to the tech news site, the test has been running for more than a month, though Facebook declined to share which links, other than The Onion, use the same tags.

Still, original satirical articles posted to the news feed will not be marked as satire. Plus, once the article is saved to a read-it-later list the tag disappears, and it doesn't show up for other sites, like The Onion's new sister site, Clickhole.

Perhaps the social network is attempting to atone for its 2012 "emotional contagion" experiment, which intentionally manipulated users' emotions to test how a virtual environment affects moods.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2463108,00.asp