© Toby Melville / Reuters
Under the old system that was introduced last year, Facebook partnered with signatories of Poynter's International Fact Checking Code of Principles - including ABC News, FactCheck.org, the Associated Press, Snopes and Politifact - to comb through the social media platform in search of fake news.
The third-party fact-checkers would review and mark offending articles with a red "disputed" tag - a process that now appears to have been unpersuasive. Facebook says it will turn instead to its "related articles" feature to help users decided what is true. First launched in 2013, related articles will suggest related content that could help users judge the accuracy of what appears in the news feed.
In a statement announcing the changes, Facebook Product Manager Tessa Lyons said that research suggests the related articles feature is more effective in combating fake news.
"Academic research on correcting misinformation has shown that putting a strong image, like a red flag, next to an article may actually entrench deeply held beliefs - the opposite effect to what we intended," said Lyons.
"Related articles, by contrast, are simply designed to give more context, which our research has shown is a more effective way to help people get to the facts. Indeed, we've found that when we show related articles next to a false news story, it leads to fewer shares than when the disputed flag is shown."
The canned disputed-articles system also appears to have suffered from human error. In November, PolitiFact "debunked" a clearly labelled satire piece after it was flagged for review by vigilant Facebook users.
Meanwhile, the New York Times noted in September that PolitiFact and other self-declared champions of truth displayed multiple ads on their own websites that promoted fake news.
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