Facebook is battling fake news by only offering verified publishers (those that regularly advertise with Facebook) the ability to edit headlines and meta descriptions for their verified links.
According to Campaign Asia, Facebook is limiting editorial rights for link previews to verified publishers that advertise on its platform.
In a bid to battle the prevalence of fake news, Facebook has announced a change that will disallow non-publisher Facebook pages from being able to edit or modify the link previews on Facebook.
Now any page not deemed a publisher will be unable to overwrite link metadata (which means the headline and description) within the API or in Page composer.
On the other hand, verified publishers will now be able to customize how their content appears to audiences on Facebook. Page administrators can now find a new tab in the Page Publishing Tools section that allows for the indication of link ownership.
The steps Facebook has taken to dissuade the publication of false or inaccurate news include limiting spam or fake news publishers’ access to buying ads, reducing posts that link to “low-quality web page experiences,” introducing ranking updates to limit the spread of false news or clickbait and testing new ways for people to report a false story.
(Read about the rest of Facebook’s ongoing initiatives to spot fake news here).
