Even if you’re still active on Facebook or not, you would know that most stories are shared on the top social network. People are not as willing to RT (retweet) on Twitter as they are willing to click the share button while on Facebook.

Sharing stories is a good thing but only a few people have the decency and time to research if they are true or not. Verifying facts is not as common that’s why the term ‘viral videos’ and ‘viral stories’ came about.

Facebook and Storyful are set to change the standard by creating a Newswire that helps verify stories for everyone. This Newswire won’t focus on traffic or referral but rather be the number one source for stories on the Internet. Simply put, trustworthy stories should be on Newswire.

If you want to share a story, don’t strive and be the first to spread the news among your circle. Don’t just press the RT or Share button. Verify first the story lest you want to spread false information and aggravate the problem.

Here are a few examples of news quickly shared on the web before:

“Within an hour of the Pacific tsunami alert being issued on April 11, 2012, Twitter and YouTube abounded with videos purporting to show monster waves striking the coast of Sumatra and Aceh in Indonesia. However, these were versions of the devastating 2004 tsunami and other dramatic videos, reissued with the 2012 date. In December 2011, when a police officer was killed at Virginia Tech in the US, a picture of the 2007 massacre was widely circulated as the 2011 event.”

Storyful aims to distinguish fake and real news through a news verification technology the group developed. Storyful will look on different factors to determine if it’s true or not. Information like the source, if source is registered, WHOIS information of the website, social graph, other online presence of the source, location, etc.

I never thought the need for such but I guess it’s about time people pay more attention to what’s real or not. Viral stories and videos are becoming annoying these days that I don’t date click a link just because someone shared them or it’s trending on Facebook or Twitter. Coming from an Internet marketing background, I find it safer and wiser to do a simple Google search about the story.

Storyful’s Newswire Facebook has officially launched and I’m hopeful that people will use this. Facebook Newswire’s editors will be busy verifying stories from all parts of the Internet.

Stories verified through Storyful would give journalists and every ordinary netizens in covering news with more confidence. Aside from verification, this Newswire will also publish a #DailyDebunk post to show an erroneous story that was recently released.

Kudos to Facebook and Storyful for the Newswire. Now we could be confident that there are still trustworthy news on the web.

[via Techcrunch]