Facebook to test labels like Satire on funny posts because everyone is too serious on the internet

KEY STORY

• Facebook is rolling out labels to help people, the gullible kind who believe everything on the internet, to distinguish facts from sarcasm. The social media giant has started adding labels to posts from publications or websites on users’ News feeds so that they can distinguish satire from real news.

• The move comes in a bid to reduce confusion about articles that are shared on the platform and their origin. The labels will include ‘public official,’ ‘fan page,’ and ‘satire page.’ Facebook is rolling out these labels in the US and will gradually add them to more posts and in more locations.

• “Starting today in the US, we’re testing a way to give people more context about the Pages they see. We’ll gradually start applying labels including ‘public official,’ ‘fan page’ or ‘satire page’ to posts in News Feed, so people can better understand who they’re coming from,” Facebook tweeted on its Newsroom Twitter handle.

• Facebook has not explained the reason behind adding these labels to the articles. However, satirical websites or publications post articles which people often take at their face value, believing them to be real news. Former US President Donald Trump has mistaken such stories for real reports in the past, The Verge reported.

• Even though these publications do not intend to spread misinformation, they are written in such a way that people believe them thinking it is real news.

• Facebook noted that such articles need labels because “they combine the influence of a media organization with the strategic backing of a state, and we believe people should know if the news they read is coming from a publication that may be under the influence of a government.”

• Facebook has also revamped its news feed to give users more control of what they want to see at a time when tech giants are being held responsible for misinformation. The revamped news feed will enable users to see posts from select people including their friends and contacts if they want to.

CONCLUSION

• Users can select up to 30 friends and Pages to include in Favorites. Users can also choose to turn off the Facebook algorithm entirely and see posts in chronological order if they want.

• Last year, Facebook announced that it will start labeling posts by media outlets that are under the partial or editorial control of the government. The company also said that they would block ads from government-influenced media outlets. The motive behind labelling these posts was to inform users about media outlets that are controlled by the government.