Facebook to also tackle "fake news" in Netherlands

Facebook is teaming up with NU.nl and Leiden University to fight "fake news" shared on the social media site in the Netherlands. NU.nl and Leiden University will work as fact checkers, NU.nl reports.

Editors of the two Dutch institutions will be given access to a special Facebook dashboard on which they can see articles that were marked as "fake news" by users. They will then check the facts in the articles, and if they indeed turn out to be factually incorrect, the article will henceforth be marked as such.

Fake news will not be completely removed from Facebook, but it will perform less well in the site's algorithms. Which means that it will be less visible.

Those who share fake news on the social media platform will get a warning, to deter them from sharing misleading information.

Facebook already launched similar initiatives in Germany, France and the United States. This follows the commotion that stemmed from the American elections possibly being influenced by misleading facts.