Measuring the effect of Facebook’s downranking interventions against groups and websites that repeatedly share misinformation

Facebook has claimed to fight misinformation notably by reducing the virality of posts shared by “repeat offender” websites. The platform recently extended this policy to groups. We identified websites and groups that repeatedly publish false information according to fact checkers and investigated the implementation and impact of Facebook’s measures against them. Our analysis reveals a significant reduction in engagement per article/post following the publication of two or more “false” links. These results highlight the need for systematic investigation of web platforms’ measures designed to limit the spread of misinformation to better understand their effectiveness and consequences.