The fake news is a big challenge that has to be tackled in the age of social media. With a wide reach of the social platforms, it is easier to pass on anything without even confirming the truth. Now Facebook has introduced a measure, that will give a rating to every user. Facebook will rate a person's trustworthiness, be it a publisher or a reader. The social media giant is assigning a 'reputation score' rating on the scale of 0-1.

These assessments will help in identifying those who spread malicious content online. While there is an option to report certain content, it was observed that people reported even the right content as wrong. This false reporting will also reduce the user's own credibility. Tessa Lyons, the product manager dealing with the problem of misinformation said to Washington Post report, "It’s “not uncommon for people to tell us something is false simply because they disagree with the premise of a story or they’re intentionally trying to target a particular publisher."

How will the rating be given?

The rating method is very simple. If Facebook gets a 'fake news' report, the company will verify the truth with a third-party. And if it is found to be wrong, the one who falsely reported the story will get a lower score. But if the reported link is actually false, then the user's score will improve.

But these scores will not be visible to the user. They will be with the company. Facebook had announced they would give an opportunity to users to rate publishers and media outlets. These ratings would help in getting the good and trustworthy articles at the top of the newsfeed. But comes to drawing a user's trustworthiness, it is still not known what all criteria are being used. It is not known in what way the scores would be used.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Aug 22, 2018 01:10 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).