Facebook Tests New Contextual 'Labels' for Posts From Popular Pages
Facebook is testing the use of Page labels as a way to give people more context about the posts that appear in their news feed, the social network has announced.
Politicians' pages will be marked with the label "public official," while the labels "fan page" and "satire page" will be applied to posts from the relevant pages, with the aim of helping users to distinguish between genuine news reports from satirical stories written by the likes of The Onion.
The labels should also allow users to immediately realize when they are reading news from real authorities or more questionable sources, which could reduce confusion, mitigate the spread of fake news on the platform, and reduce avoidable flame wars in comments.
The new labels will appear below Page names on relevant posts in the news feed, and users can expand them to read more about why they are deemed necessary.
The labels are currently limited to Facebook in the U.S., and the feature has only just started being tested, so the ability to label pages accordingly and see the labels in posts may still be rolling out.
Facebook has been criticized heavily in the past for not doing enough to stop the spread of fake news. A study by researchers at Princeton University in March 2020 found that Facebook is by far the worst social media platform for spreading dubious news content, compared to Twitter and Google.
Related Stories
As with Apple's events throughout 2020 and 2021, today's media event kicking off at 10:00 am Pacific Time will be entirely online and likely a pre-recorded stream from Apple Park. Still, some MacRumors readers who can't follow the event as it's being broadcast are interested in avoiding all of the announcements and waiting until the event has ended and is available for on-demand viewing so as to...
Thursday October 7, 2021 1:38 am PDT by
Sami FathiApple's newsroom and leadership pages are both currently experiencing some errors, leading to the appearance of some changes to Apple's leadership.
From our knowledge, Apple's leadership and newsroom pages have been throwing up errors for the past two hours or so, and it seems to be that Apple is making server-side changes. In an oddity of those changes, Apple mistakenly listed Phil Schiller ...
Facebook today announced a new "Privacy Center" section on its website on the desktop. This new area will offer users a "new place to learn more about our approach to privacy across our apps and technologies" and "provides helpful information about five common privacy topics," Meta announced today in a press release.
The new Privacy Center, rolling out to a small pool of Facebook users in...
Twitter is globally expanding its testing of a new "dislike" or thumbs down button for tweets, which is designed to let people downvote replies on the social media platform.
The company announced the global expansion of the test on Thursday, saying it had "learned a lot" about the downvoting option in its initial limited testing:
We learned a lot about the types of replies you don't find...
Facebook, now rebranded to Meta, is looking to open physical retail stores where customers will be able to experience the wide range of products it has to offer, such as Oculus headsets, in a "welcoming" and "judgment-free" experience, according to a new report from The New York Times.
The report says that Facebook executives began floating the idea of a physical retail store last year, but...
Wednesday March 31, 2021 3:48 am PDT by
Sami FathiFacebook today announced a slew of new changes coming to its app on iOS and Android, making it easier for users to turn off the algorithmically-ranked News Feed, and new tools for controlling who can comment on posts.
Facebook previously rolled out a new Favorites timeline, allowing users to specify their favorite friends, family members, and pages, and access their posts in one place....
For this week's giveaway, we've teamed up with GRID Studio to offer MacRumors readers a chance to win a deconstructed original Apple device that's been turned into a clever art piece. Grid Studio is offering several prizes for MacRumors readers, including a GRID 1 featuring the original iPhone, a Grid 3GS, a GRID 4S, a GRID Watch 1st Gen, and two Apple A7 chips.
GRID Studio takes older Apple ...
Wednesday September 29, 2021 8:18 am PDT by
Sami FathiFacebook today announced that it's bringing Reels, its short-form videos that were previously only available on the Instagram platform, to its main Facebook app on iOS and Android in the United States. While the two share the same name and style, Reels content on Instagram and Facebook will differ. Facebook says it is testing the ability for Instagram Reels content creators to share their...
Popular Stories
Apple is developing new iPad Pro, Mac, and Apple TV models, and at least some of these products will be released in October, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. However, Gurman continues to believe that Apple is unlikely to hold an event this month.
In the latest edition of his Power On newsletter, Gurman said "the big iPhone 14 unveiling last month was probably it for Apple in 2022 in...
The Wall Street Journal's Joanna Stern recently traveled to Michigan to test Apple's new crash detection feature on the iPhone 14 and Apple Watch Ultra. In response, Apple provided some additional information about how the feature works.
Stern recruited Michael Barabe to crash his demolition derby car with a heavy-duty steel frame into two unoccupied vehicles parked in a junkyard — a 2003...
This week's best Apple deals focus on the AirPods Pro, AirPods Pro 2, and M2 MacBook Air, including numerous all-time low prices on these devices. You'll also find up to 50 percent off discounts on Anker and Eufy accessories on Amazon.
Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with some of these vendors. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us...
As of October 1, Apple SIM is no longer available for activating new cellular data plans on supported iPad models, according to an Apple support document.
Introduced in 2014, the Apple SIM was designed to allow iPad users to activate cellular data plans from multiple carriers around the world. Initially, the Apple SIM was a physical nano-SIM card, but it was embedded inside later iPad Pro...
The iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max introduce some major improvements in camera technology, adding a 48-megapixel lens and low-light improvements across all lenses with the new Photonic Engine. We've spent the last week working on an in-depth comparison that pits the new iPhone 14 Pro Max against the prior-generation iPhone 13 Pro Max to see just how much better the iPhone 14 Pro Max can be.
Subscrib ...
Thursday September 29, 2022 9:08 am PDT by
Sami FathiOne of the biggest new features in iOS 16 is a completely redesigned iPhone Lock Screen. The new Lock Screen is entirely customizable, letting you change the colors and fonts, add widgets and new wallpapers, and more to make your iPhone uniquely yours. Of course, even before iOS 16, you could customize your Lock Screen with a wallpaper of your choice. iOS 16 takes the Lock Screen wallpaper...
While we had been expecting a follow-up October Apple event focused on Mac and iPad announcements, it sounds like we might not be getting another event after all. Instead, the pending updates in those product segments could be considered minor enough that they may be announced via press releases.
It wasn't all bad news, however, with Apple announcing that it will be expanding an on-device...
iOS 16.0.2 was released last month with several bug fixes for iPhone 14 issues, excessive copy and paste permission prompts, and more. Now, evidence suggests that Apple is planning to release iOS 16.0.3 with additional bug fixes.
Evidence of an upcoming iOS 16.0.3 software update has shown up in MacRumors analytics logs, which have been a reliable indicator in the past.
There are several...
In a new interview, Apple's senior vice president of software engineering, Craig Federighi, and Apple's vice president of human interface design, Alan Dye, sat down to discuss the thinking behind the iPhone 14 Pro's Dynamic Island and how it was developed.
During the interview with the Japanese magazine Axis, Federighi, who oversees the development of iOS, said Dynamic Island represents the...
Top Rated Comments
How should I vote? What should I care about? What should make me outraged? What will make me laugh? What does it mean to be healthy? Who shares the same ideas as me? Are people who disagree with me degenerates? Tell me I matter. Tell me I’m loved. Tell me life isn’t meaningless. Tell me what I want to hear. Tell me what I believe is true. Tell me what to think.
I don't miss it one bit. It drives my wife crazy for some reason that I'm not on it. It became a cees pool of politics, anger, one upsmanship, and people saying things they would get punched for if they said it to someone's face. And they KNOW it.
Too many people get fired or loose relationships over misunderstandings that result from the social media circus.