Facebook Now Rates Users on Trustworthiness
Facebook is now rating users on how trustworthy they are in identifying and reporting real and false news. The ratings system was first reported by The Washington Post. A Post reporter interviewed Facebook product manager Tessa Lyons, who leads the company’s efforts to fight misinformation. Lyons told the newspaper the system was developed and put into place over the past year.
In January, Facebook announced a similar system to produce ratings for the trustworthiness of news sources. At that time, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said those ratings would be based on information provided by Facebook users. Zuckerberg said news sources receiving higher trustworthy ratings from the community would be prioritized in the social media service’s News Feed.
The new ratings system is designed to predict how effective a user is at identifying and reporting false news stories. Every user is given a rating between zero and one, the Post reports. Lyons told the newspaper such a system is necessary because some users are incorrectly reporting whether a story is true or false.