NEW YORK: In a move to curb the spread of fake news and misinformation, Facebook has revamped its Trending Topics feature that will now allow every user from a region to see the same trending topic.Trending Topics feature appears on the rightside of news feed that lists news topics popular on Facebook.Earlier, users could see the personalised interest-based list of topics in this section.According to a report in CNET on Thursday, instead of just seeing a bare-bones topic, users will now see a full headline from one of the news stories about that topic. "Facebook is changing the way the topics are selected. The topics had been chosen based on how many people on Facebook are engaging with it. With the new changes, Facebook will look at the number of outlets posting stories on a particular topic, and decide its inclusion based on engagement around that group of articles," the report noted.According to the Pew Research Center and Knight Foundation, over 40 per cent of American adults get their news from Facebook. "Fake news was a thing on Facebook before the election, and something Facebook had been working to address for a couple of years.

Source: Economic Times January 26, 2017 18:20 UTC