As fake news continue to infiltrate social media sites and misleading many, Facebook is launching a new feature that can prevent fake news from making it on the social network. In the process of elimination of fake news, it has started killing non-publisher Pages’ ability to edit the link previews that appear on the website when they post a story, including its headline, image and the text snippet that goes along with them. The social network says the new feature will “help eliminate a channel that has been abused to post false news.”
Earlier, any Facebook Page that posted a link could change the headline, body text and image that appeared in the News Feed preview. This made it difficult for one to distinguish the real content of the article from the false headline or lead it carried. However, this feature also enabled real news outlets A/B test link previews, tailor content to different audiences and update previews as news stories evolved.
A new tab in Page Publishing Tools for Link Ownership will excuse those who specify the web domain they own and be authorised by Facebook to modify the previews of links to this domain. All Pages that want exemption must have their link ownership approved by September 12, 2017, when the removal of unauthorised preview editing will be fully rolled out.
