US President Donald Trump and his administration have made it their mission to sow a distrust for the media throughout the US — and the prevalence of “fake news” sites isn’t helping — but Facebook is looking to restore the broken relationship its users have with journalism.
The company has begun a test to give users more information on the news articles that appear on their timelines. This information — accessed by clicking a lower case “i” — includes a background on the original publication, a look at related articles, and a map of where the article is being shared.
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It will also let users know when there is no information available — which should alert them to the dubiousness of the publisher.
It seems unlikely this feature will change much in the way of the way users interact with news, but Facebook says that “this is just the beginning of the test”, implying there could be more to come.
The feature is part of its work through the Facebook Journalism Project, which sees the company working with journalists to develop news products and provide training for Facebook’s journalism products.
Facebook says it will work with publishers throughout the test to help users decide which stories to “read, share, and trust”.
