By Sara Su, Product Manager, News Feed
One of our main goals is to support an informed community on Facebook. This includes helping people have conversations about the news and giving people more ways to see a more complete picture of a story or topic.
This work is important to us, so we’re building new products and exploring ways to improve our existing ones. In 2013, we launched Related Articles to help people discover new articles they may find interesting about the same topic. These articles appear in News Feed after people read an article.
Today, we’re beginning to test Related Articles that might appear before you read an article shared in News Feed. These additional articles, which appear for topics many people are talking about on Facebook, will appear in a unit below the link. That should provide people easier access to additional perspectives and information, including articles by third-party fact checkers.
For example, during an instance when a lot of people are discussing an article about a new medical advancement, we may also show you a few other articles below it from different publishers about the same medical topic.
This is one of many tests we’re working on to improve the experiences people have on Facebook. We will learn from the test, and apply what we learn to improve the product for everyone.
Update: August 3, 2017: Rolling Out Related Articles More Broadly
Since starting this test, we’ve heard that Related Articles helps give people more perspectives and additional information, and helps them determine whether the news they are reading is misleading or false. So we’re rolling this out more broadly.
Now, we will start using updated machine learning to detect more potential hoaxes to send to third-party fact checkers. If an article has been reviewed by fact checkers, we may show the fact checking stories below the original post. In addition to seeing which stories are disputed by third-party fact checkers, people want more context to make informed decisions about what they read and share. We will continue testing updates to Related Articles and other ongoing News Feed efforts to show less false news on Facebook and provide people context if they see false news.
How Will This Impact My Page?
We don’t anticipate Pages will see significant changes in reach. Pages should continue posting stories that are relevant to their audience.