Facebook automates effort to flag fake news

Facebook is taking a more aggressive step to thwart the spread of fake news on its platform.

The company said it has created a software algorithm to flag stories that may be suspicious and send them to third-party fact checkers. If the fact-checkers review the post and write a story debunking it or giving context, that post may appear below the original content on Facebook’s news feed, according to a company blog post.

Facebook has been taking steps to make sure that new reports spreading on its social network are accurate — without intervening in a biased way. The company has been