Facebook on Thursday announced it is to bolster its efforts to root out fake news in Germany, France and the Netherlands through a process of identifying content, fact-checking and offering the tools for users to inform themselves.

"One of our most important goals is to support an informed community on Facebook. This includes helping people interact with the latest news and information," it said in a blog post published on its website.

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The US-based technology company said it will use improved machine learning to identify potential fake news articles which can be passed on to external fact checkers.

'Headlines about aliens'

It plans to complement the review process by leveraging the power of its Related Articles feature, which groups similar articles under one a user has read in their newsfeed.

Facebook said that it will place Related Articles with a notification before the article appears in a feed in order for the user to determine whether they may want to read the article.

For example, a notification saying "possible fake headlines about aliens" may appear in a user's newsfeed before reaching an article concerning the arrival of extraterrestrial life on earth.

Criminalizing fake news

In Germany, fake news has proliferated on social media networks following the US presidential elections, which witnessed thousands of online articles purporting to report factual events influence the electoral process.

The phenomenon has particularly targeted German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her open-door policy towards migrants fleeing war in the Middle East.

Politicians on both sides of Germany's political spectrum have called for legal measures to punish those found guilty of producing and disseminating malicious articles purporting to be factual.

However, digital rights groups and free speech advocates criticized any legislative maneuvers to criminalize fake news.