Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Photo: Noah Berger/AP
Facebook is testing a new feature designed to give people additional context on articles they see in News Feed, so that they can be better informed about the information they share, read and trust. Beginning Thursday, people will see a button next to articles in the News Feed which they can tap to receive additional context on the article without being directed to a separate page. The effort is an initiative of the Facebook Journalism Project.
Why it matters: It's the latest step Facebook is taking to stop false information and fake news from spreading on its platform. CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently asked for forgiveness for the ways his work "was used to divide people rather than bring us together."
Our thought bubble: Facebook says that the additional contextual information will be pulled from across Facebook and other sources, like information from the article publisher's Wikipedia entry. Wikipedia and Facebook are both crowdsourced platforms, so it will be interesting to see if those sources continue to pull the most accurate contextual news and information.