Facebook is testing out a feature that marks fake news stories from sites such as The Onion with "satire" in its News Feed, a feature requested by some users, the social network confirmed to Mashable.
"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. This is because we received feedback that people wanted a clearer way to distinguish satirical articles from others in these units," a Facebook representative told Mashable.
An image captured by Ars Technica shows articles in the "related stories" field on Facebook's News Feed marked with a small, bracketed "[Satire]" tag. Oddly, the tags appear only after users click an article from a satirical website, and then return to their News Feed afterward, according to Ars Technica. The tests have reportedly been going on for a month, and a variety of satirical sites are included in the program.
The biggest casualty of these clearly marked satire pieces could be the blog Literally Unbelievable, which collects screenshots of Facebook users fooled -- and often outraged -- by articles by The Onion.
The tags could be more useful for sites that aren't as well-known as The Onion. Satirical-news blog The Daily Currant posted a piece on former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin joining Qatar-based Al Jazeera as a commentator. A Washington Post journalist picked it up as real news, and the newspaper was forced to post a correction on its website.