You can now flag fake stories on Facebook

Where were you on January 4th at 9:47 a.m. PST?

Despite a widely-circulated, NASA-attributed tweet that claimed you’d be floating in midair due to a “long awaited planetary alignment,” you were probably planted firmly on the ground.

The tweet, appended with the hashtag #beready, was featured on a website that publishes articles “inspired by real news events” or are “works of complete fiction.” Despite the tweet’s implausibility, it was shared on other sites, circulating on other platforms like Facebook.

Photo courtesy of Ruth Tam

Now, Facebook is trying to shut down popular hoaxes, including the aforementioned “zero gravity day.” The company announced Tuesday that users will now be able to flag stories as “purposefully fake or deceitful news.”

While the site will not remove these stories from a user’s account (nor will it review content for accuracy), it will track where these stories are distributed.

According to today’s announcement, posts that are repeatedly flagged as fraudulent will be annotated with a warning message telling readers that other users had reported it. Take that, fake NASA.