It was, I believe, in the BuzzFeed articles that came out about it, in which they were specifically referring to the fact that it would reduce distribution, which is a bit of what you were talking about. It was clickbait, right there, but it also would identify it as false or a hoax. There was a feeling, in the article in which they were describing this project, that it would have had partisan repercussions, that certain types of articles might have been removed more than others, on a partisan basis, and this was why it wasn't followed through.
On November 17th, 2016. See this statement in context.