Have you fallen for the latest Facebook hoax or hate being ‘trolled’ by your friends who share fake News stories on Facebook?

Good news! Facebook just added an option for users to report stories they see in News Feed as false, which helps save the rest of us from being fooled!

Because while Facebook is great for spreading breaking news, not all of the stories you see in your News Feed are true.

This week’s #SocialMediaMinute will cover how to report fake News Feed stories and hoaxes on Facebook.

Reporting a false story works in the same way as reporting a story as spam. Check it out in the video tutorial below.

See Also: How to Block and Remove Facebook Game Invites

Video Tutorial

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What are Hoaxes?

Hoaxes are a form of News Feed spam that includes scams (“Click here to win a lifetime supply of candy”), or deliberately false or misleading news stories (“Man sees Bigfoot on hike in Oregon”).

People often share these hoaxes and later decide to delete their original posts after realizing they’ve been tricked. This usually comes in the form of lots of comments from friends letting them know it’s a hoax or linking to hoax-busting websites.

Reporting News Feed Hoaxes

To reduce the number of these types of posts, News Feed will now take into account when numerous people flag a post as false.

News Feed will also take into account how many people choose to delete their posts (share) after being informed it’s fake.

This all leads to reduced distribution in News Feed and applies to posts including links, photos, videos and status updates.

Huzzah! No more hysteria or viral disinformation!

More importantly Facebook’s update to News Feed will add an annotation to posts that have received many of these types of reports to warn others on Facebook.

However Facebook will not remove stories people report as false and are not reviewing content to determine its accuracy. So it’s really up to Facebook users to self moderate their feeds.

Takeaway

The goal of News Feed is to serve stories that matter to you. Facebook seems to have learned that hoaxes ruin its users’ experience. Luckily, the majority of publishers on Facebook will not be impacted by this update though publishers who do frequently post hoaxes and scams will see their News Feed distribution decrease. You have been warned!

Keep in mind satirical content intended to be humorous, or content that is clearly labeled as satire should not be affected by this update as users rarely report this type of content.

Have you ever fallen for a Facebook hoax? Are you excited to have the power to further moderate your News Feed? Let me know in the comments below and make sure to come back next week for more social media tutorials.