Facebook Adds Trust Indicators for News Articles to Boost Real Journalism

Facebook has announced several initiatives in order to promote authentic and fact-based journalism. Now the tech giant is rolling out its latest feature. Facebook calls it Trust Indicator. It is an icon that you can tap to learn more about the publisher of articles shared on Facebook. Facebook Adds Trust Indicators for News Articles to Boost Real Journalism.

Trust indicators will attach to articles shared on Facebook, offer information about publishers including their policies on ethics, corrections, and fact-checking, as well as their ownership structure and their masthead.

Facebook Adds Trust Indicators for News Articles to Boost Real Journalism

Facebook has confirmed that it will begin with a small group of publishers and expand over time.

Facebook said in a statement:

We believe that helping people access this important contextual information can help them evaluate if articles are from a publisher they trust, and if the story itself is credible,” This step is part of our larger efforts to combat false news and misinformation on Facebook — providing people with more context to help them make more informed decisions, advance news literacy and education, and working to reinforce indicators of publisher integrity on our platform.

The basic aim of trust indicator is to introduce other contextual information into shared articles, including a basic description of the publisher, and other articles about the subject. Trust indicators were developed by the Trust Project, which is an international consortium of news organizations. It is hosted by Santa Clara University. Google and Craig Newmark, the founder of Craigslist are the funders of this organization.

Trust indicators also help clarify if the story is news or opinion. Also it helps to identify that who owns the news site publishing the story, and other information that can help a reader understand whether the story is based on authentic, and factual journalism or fake news.

Google, Twitter, and several publishers, including The Washington Post also plans to begin using trust indicators to help people in order to determine the reliability of the content they are reading online.

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