Facebook wants to know which news sources Europeans trust
It's testing its trusted source surveys in five European countries.
In January, Facebook announced that it would begin tackling the problem of fake news by asking US users which outlets they deemed trustworthy. Doing so consists of a very simple two-part survey that asks users if they recognize a website and how much they trust it -- entirely, a lot, somewhat, barely or not at all. It's a move that has attracted criticism and concerns of abuse, but, regardless, Mark Zuckerberg said last week that Facebook has begun using those surveys to rank news organizations, affecting how they're promoted in the News Feed. Now, the company is testing the system in Europe.
Reuters reports that Facebook will begin showing similar surveys to users in the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain but the results of those questionnaires won't yet affect the ranking of publications or where they appear in the News Feed. The company told Reuters that if it decides to implement the survey findings and have them impact the News Feed, it will announce those changes at that time.
