Facebook's latest move to improve the trustworthiness of news feeds is to target sensational claims based on health benefits.
We've all seen them: herbal cures for cancer, claims that vaccines cause autism, weight loss pills, healing crystals and all the rest.
And it's worth noting that, as the saying goes, the lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on. In an article published in Science last year, for example, researchers found that on Twitter the top one per cent of false news spread to between 1,000 and 100,000 people, while the truth rarely reached more than 1,000. Lies also spread faster than the truth.
More recently, researchers at the Health Feedback scientists' network found that of the 10 most-shared articles pertaining to health online, seven contained misleading or false information. And Facebook was by far the largest source of inaccurate articles, accounting for 96 per cent of shares of the top 100 articles.
Now, though, the company is downranking posts making dubious health claims in its News Feed.
"For the first update, we consider if a post about health exaggerates or misleads — for example, making a sensational claim about a miracle cure," says products manager Travis Yeh in a blog post.
"For the second update, we consider if a post promotes a product or service based on a health-related claim — for example, promoting a medication or pill claiming to help you lose weight."
The company plans to handle this in much the same way as it deals with clickbait - by identifying phrases that have been commonly used in posts with suspect health claims in the past, and using them to weed out new offenders.
To much of the developed world, this move will seem pretty trivial. It's worth remembering, though, that misleading health claims stand out as a serious problem in the US, given the lack of a universal, low-cost healthcare system.
Here in the UK, for example, doctors routinely warn their patients not to Google their symptoms but to pop in for an expert opinion instead - and why wouldn't you, when you won't even have a copay to consider?
In the US, by contrast, attempting to save money by doing your own research is an eminently sensible option - but one that can lead to truly shocking outcomes. Well done Facebook for at least doing something to make sure the snake-oil salesmen don't prevail.
