How To Use Facebook's 'Disputed News' Feature To Report Fake News

As promised, Facebook rolled out a new feature on Friday that helps users identify "fake news" so that they, and their friends, can avoid it. Facebook and Google announced in February that they would be working on a way to curb fake news after they were criticized for failing to flag it during the U.S. election.

On Friday Facebook rolled out the feature quietly; Gizmodo was the first to notice.

The feature is similar to the original report button that allowed users to report posts on Facebook as abusive or harmful. Now when you report, there's an option to report the post as fake news.

How to use the "disputed news" feature:

If you come across a post you think may be fake news, you can select the down arrow in the upper right hand corned of the post. A drop down menu will appear, select "Report this post."

Once you select that, you'll be on a new screen that gives you the option to choose why you're reporting the post.

Choose "It's a fake news story." This will take you to another page that will give you the option to report the post as fake news. Other options include blocking, unfriending, unfollowing or messaging the person who posted the article or post.

If you mark a post as fake news, it may be reviewed by third-party fact checkers, according to Facebook. "These fact-checkers will be signatories of the non-partisan Poynter Code of Principles. A story may be marked as disputed if these fact-checkers find the story to be fake," says the info page on disputed news on Facebook.

This feature is not yet available to all Facebook users.