Basics on Facebook Reputation Score

In one of the more publicized areas of social media in recent memory, Facebook has recently been under fire in the public eye based on trustworthiness. Due to the rise in “fake news” and false information becoming more and more prevalent online and on Facebook’s platform in particular, the company has begun to change the way it handles issue reports, including a “reputation score” that predicts trustworthiness in users.

Will this have significant effects on the social media marketing services we provide for you at SEO Werkz, which include Facebook? Let’s look at this reputation score, what it means, and what – if any – effect it may have on website marketing.

Specifically For News Stories

Per a report in The Washington Post, Facebook now assigns all users a reputation score that ranges between 0 and 1. This score is meant to predict trustworthiness – but in a particular area, not just as an overall person.

To be specific, the reputation score speaks only to issues regarding the reporting of false news stories. Facebook naturally leans heavily on user reports to limit the spread of fake news, but they’ve begun to notice an unfortunate trickle-down effect here: Many users will report a story as “false” just because they disagree with the story or the publisher, not because there’s actually incorrect information in the story.

Third-Party Fact Checkers

As a result of what we just described, Facebook sends all such reports to third-party fact-checkers for review. From here, if these fact-checkers determine that a user reported a story false when it was in fact true, the user who reported that story will see their reputation score lowered. In the future, any complaints they make will be given lower priority on the list.

On the flip side, users who regularly accurately report false news stories will see a higher reputation score. Future reports from these users will be weighted heavily.

Reducing Workload

Facebook has billions of users, and a big part of this outsourcing is likely due to the simple volume of these kinds of reports. They want to ensure they see the most relevant and accurate reports before others, so this is a good way of organizing users by their reputation for these kinds of reports.

As for the internet marketing sphere, it’s unlikely this area of Facebook processes will greatly affect your social media marketing efforts. As these marketing strategies rarely overlap with daily news or similar services, it’s unlikely you’ll run into issues where reputation score will make a big impact on any of your campaigns. But it’s another sign that Facebook is taking reliability seriously, one that absolutely trickles down into marketing efforts on a regular basis.

To learn about how we can help you with Facebook and other social outlets, or for more information on any of our SEO services, speak to the pros at SEO Werkz today.