Facebook, the social media giant, has announced that it will launch a notification screen with a warning that notifies users when they share content that’s more than 90 days old. They’ll be given two options: a choice to “go back” or continue if they’d still like to share the content after seeing the notification.
This step is aimed to add more context to the news/articles shared on Facebook and make it easier for users to identify timely and relevant content.
Previously, the social media platform has introduced a context button that provides in-depth information about the sources of articles in the News Feed. On this basis, the new feature informs users about the timeliness of articles.
“To ensure people have the context they need to make informed decisions about what to share on Facebook, the notification screen will appear when people click the share button on articles older than 90 days, but will allow people to continue sharing if they decide an article is still relevant,” Facebook said.
“News publishers, in particular, have expressed concerns about older stories being shared on social media as current news, which can misconstrue the state of current events. Some news publishers have already taken steps to address this on their own websites by prominently labeling older articles to prevent outdated news from being used in misleading ways,” Facebook added.
Besides, Facebook would test other types of notification screens to reduce misinformation, including pop-ups related to the global Covid-19 pandemic posts. The notification screen will deliver complete and accurate information about the source of the link shared in a post and direct people to the COVID-19 Information Center.
Facebook said that the sharing of outdated stories outside its original context contributes to the spreading of fake news.
In a blog statement, John Hegeman, Vice President of Feed and Stories at Facebook, said: “Over the past several months, our internal research found that the timeliness of an article is an important piece of context that helps people decide what to read, trust and share.”
The notification screen is an extension of other types of notifications that are being tested by the company. Last year, Instagram released a popup notification to prevent users from sharing offensive or abusive comments with similar options that allow them to continue or go back.
Recently, Twitter also tested a new feature that notifies users before sharing articles they haven’t read it themselves. The feature essentially asks users if they would like to read the article before they retweet it.
Follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram now.
