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Facebook to Assign Users a ‘Reputation Score’ to Help Combat Fake News

The effort will rate users’ credibility on a scale of zero to one.

Facebook has started assigning a “reputation score” for users in an effort to measure user credibility and to “help identify malicious actors,” The Washington Post reports. The scores will measure the trustworthiness of a user on a scale between zero and one, and the company did not elaborate what criteria it will use to determine a user’s score. Tessa Lyons, product manager at Facebook, told the newspaper that the system was developed to help combat fake news from being disseminated on the social network. She said the “reputation score” was just “one measurement among thousands” that’s being used to assess users. While Facebook has traditionally relied on user reports to flag false and inappropriate content, Lyons said she’s seen many reports target specific publishers or articles that users simply disagree with.