Facebook Could Get You Labeled as Fake News

If you use Facebook regularly to share news about your brand, product or service, you may want to make sure you don’t post too many updates in the future. Otherwise, you may run the risk of being labeled fake news.

In a recent announcement, Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) said that it was changing its news feed computer algorithm as a way of limiting the reach of people known to frequently blast links to sensationalist websites, clickbait stories and misinformation.

“Users who post a lot — meaning 50-plus times per day — are very often sharing posts that the company considers to be spam or false news,” said recode’s senior editor Kurt Wagner in a post. “So now Facebook is going to identify the links that these super-posters share, and cut down on their distribution on the network.”

Facebook Update to Reduce Fake News

Facebook says that the change would ideally reduce the influence of a “tiny group” of people who routinely share vast amounts of public posts per day, effectively spamming people’s feeds.

“One of our core News Feed values is that News Feed should be informative,” said Facebook’s VP Adam Mosseri. By taking steps like this to improve News Feed, we’re able to surface more stories that people find informative and reduce the spread of problematic links.”

The changes are set to only apply to links and not to photos, videos, status updates or check-ins. It is also important to note that the update doesn’t affect Facebook Pages, only individual accounts, so publishers and marketers sharing their own content likely won’t be affected.

The social media giant, which now boasts 2 billion monthly active users, frequently tweaks its algorithm. For instance, back in May, the company announced a change giving lower prominence to links that lead to pages full of annoying and deceptive ads.