Instagram to Add ‘False Information’ Labels to Viral Fake Posts

The labels, shown on the top of images, videos, stories, will be linked to an evaluation by a fact-checker.

Instagram has announced new measures to tackle misinformation on the social media platform.

(Photo: PTI)

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Instagram announced new measures to tackle misinformation by including “clearer fact-checking labels” on Monday, 21 October. The announcement comes just a year before the 2020 US presidential elections.

According to Instagram, over the next month, if a post on Facebook and Instagram has been rated false or partially false by any third-party fact-checker, it will be clearly labelled, in order to help people understand what’s true and what’s not.

The labels will be prominently shown on the top of the concerned images, videos, stories, and will be linked to the evaluation or the rating issued by the fact-checker.

Screenshot shows a grey overlay that will cover content as ‘False information’ marked by third-party fact checkers. (Photo Courtesy: Instagram)

Also, like Facebook, Instagram is introducing a pop-up, after which when you share a post that has already been debunked by a third-party fact-checker, the post will be automatically linked to the fact-checked content.

Users will see a pop-up if a certain content has marked as ‘false’ by fact-checkers.(Photo Courtesy: Instagram)

Facebook and Instagram have introduced measures reduce the distribution of fake posts, in their own respective ways. While on Facebook, the distribution of posts spreading misinformation is reduced in the News Feed, on Instagram, the post is removed from ‘Explore’ and the relevant hashtags.

Further, Instagram filters content from accounts that repeatedly post fake news and makes such content difficult to find by filtering it from Explore and the hashtag pages.

On the other hand, on Facebook, restrictions are imposed on the advertising and monetising abilities of pages that repeatedly post misinformation. The social media platform also reduces the overall distribution of domains or groups that share fake news.

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