Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said on Friday that Facebook Inc. will prioritize “trustworthy” news in its feed of social media posts as the company works on fighting “sensationalism” and “misinformation”.
The company, which has more than 2 billion monthly users, said its members would determine how news outlets rank in terms of trustworthiness.
Zuckerberg outlined the shakeup in a post on Facebook, saying that starting next week the News Feed, the company’s centerpiece product, would prioritize “high quality news” over less trusted sources.
“There’s too much sensationalism, misinformation and polarization in the world today,” he wrote.
“Social media enables people to spread information faster than ever before, and if we don’t specifically tackle these problems, then we end up amplifying them,” he said.
Facebook’s chief executive expected the amount of news on Facebook to shrink to about 4 percent of all content from the current 5 percent.
Facebook has had a stormy relationship with news organizations, especially those with strong political leanings. In 2016, Republican US lawmakers expressed concern that Facebook was suppressing news stories of interest to conservative readers.
Last week, Zuckerberg said the company would change the way it filters posts and videos on its News Feed to prioritize what friends and family share.
