Facebook is updating its "trending" feature that highlights hot topics on its social networking site, part of its effort to root out the kind of "fake news" stories that critics contend helped Donald Trump become president.

With the changes announced on Wednesday, Facebook's trending list will consist of topics being covered by several publishers. Before, it focused on subjects drawing the biggest crowds of people sharing or commenting on posts.

The switch is intended to make Facebook a more credible source of information by steering hordes of its 1.8 billion users toward topics that "reflect real world events being covered by multiple outlets," Will Cathcart, the company's vice president of product management, said in a blog post.

Facebook also will stop customising trending lists to cater to each user's personal interests. Instead, everyone located in the same region will see the same trending lists, which currently appear in the US, UK, Canada, Australia and India.