Fighting fake news: 10 tips to spot fake news on Facebook and how to report it

Facebook REUTERS/Regis Duvignau

Social media giant Facebook has released tips to spot fake news for its users. The list of 10 tips includes checking the source of the news, being sceptical of a flashy headline, and to be watchful for unusual formatting.

For quite a while, social media has been dealing with the spread of fake news. According to a research done in the US and published in the Journal of Economic Perspectives, it was found that 42 percent of the visits to the fake news sites was routed via social media.

“False news is harmful to our community, it makes the world less informed, and it erodes trust. It’s not a new phenomenon, and all of us — tech companies, media companies, newsrooms, teachers — have a responsibility to do our part in addressing it,” Adam Mosseri, VP, News Feed had said in April.

Along with that, there is also a way to mark a news as false news on Facebook. A user, if he or she thinks that a news posted on Facebook is false can report it.

In order to do so, just follow these steps:

1. Look for the three dots next to the post you'd like to mark as false

2. Select report post from the options

3. Click on I think it shouldn't be on Facebook

4. From the options choose It's a false news story, to complete the process

Since last year, many other companies have taken steps to guard against fake news menace. Google, last October, included a fact check label with its search result. This was followed by Bing recently.