Facebook is testing a new "satire" tag for news headlines featuring satirical articles to help people understand the context more clearly.
Facebook, the world's largest social networking site, is currently testing a new feature to help its users distinguish between satirical and real news articles. By tagging articles with a "satire" tag, the social network is hoping to stop users accidentally believing stories published by satirical websites like The Onion.
The "satire" tag, first spotted by ARS Technica, appears when a user clicks on an article from The Onion and returns to Facebook news feed. The related stories that appear below the clicked lined will feature a tag marking it as satire. Facebook confirmed testing the new feature to the tech publication, explaining it was in response to people's feedback about on making a distinction on proper news stories and satires.
"We are running a small test which shows the text '[Satire]' in front of links to satirical articles in the related articles unit in News Feed," a Facebook spokesperson said. "This is because we received feedback that people wanted a clearer way to distinguish satirical articles from others in these units."
The social network also noted that the test had been in the process for over a month but failed to disclose details on whether the tag will appear on content from other news websites. ARS Technica found articles from The Onion's buzz-feed spoof site, Clickhole, did not carry the tag. The satire tag also failed to appear alongside original articles posted by friends and on the Onion's official Facebook page.
Stories from The Onion can sometimes appear real to many users and result in varying responses. Literally Unbelievable is a site that gathers such responses generated by satire articles on the web. According to The Independent, news site SceinceNews accidentally mentioned an article by the Onion in its story last month.
