By Aaron Miller-
Facebook announced on Thursday that it would introduce a notification screen warning users whenever they try to share content that’s more than 90 days old. They’ll be given the choice to “go back” or to click through if they’d still like to share the story knowing that it isn’t fresh.
The essence of the notification is to address misinformation. Facebook acknowledged that old stories shared out of their original context play a role in spreading misinformation.
The social media company said it’s new plans were to address concerns by news publishers about old stories being recirculated as though they’re breaking news.The social network said the new mechanism would help people “make informed decisions” about what they share.
“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,” Facebook Vice President of Feed and Stories John Hegeman wrote on the company’s blog.
Behaviour
The social media giant said that its initial results with the experiment showed promise in shaping users toward better behaviour.
In a blog post announcing the new feature, Facebook said that it is now considering other kinds of notification screens to reduce misinformation, including pop-ups for posts about COVID-19 that would provide context about source links and steer users toward public health resources.