Facebook’s NewsFeed is the one place where we get information like what our friends are doing or get updated with posts from our favourite Pages. Each user’s NewsFeed is unique since Facebook learns from your activity on the site and it is a great way to connect with content you would most likely engage with.
However, with the threat of malicious content being shared on Facebook, it has led the company to make measures to combat this. One of the ways to fight fake news is showing related content that were posted by other publishers and now Facebook is taking that to the next level.
Facebook launched Related Articles in 2013 as a way for people to discover new articles of the same topic. These appeared after reading an article and you may have seen it appear in your NewsFeed.
Well, Facebook today is testing Related Articles that might appear before you read an article. This is a change from the previous system where they appeared after you read an article. Now these articles will appear in a unit before the link which will make people get a perspective about the topic, which includes articles by third party fact checkers.
Last year, Facebook announced a slew of changes to combat Fake News on the site. The addition of a repurposed related articles will allow people to have a wider perspective of the topic so that they can judge whether the information being shared is fake or not.
Facebook was quick to add that they don’t anticipate this change to affect a Page’s reach.
