Have you ever found yourself in a situation where people were calling you out on sharing an old news source? Well, if you’ve ever been in that situation, you can thank Facebook because it will not happen again.
Facebook has announced that it is rolling out a new feature that will prompt you if you’re sharing a post that’s more than 90 days old, making you consider if the post is up-to-date with current times or situations. More people relying on Facebook for news content. The Social Network has also become a key source of debate and discussion. Unfortunately, it also includes the spread of misinformation and/or skewed framing of events in order to further political agendas.
Facebook timeliness warning
That can confuse debate over current issues – and now, Facebook is looking to address this by adding in a new warning screen. When people go to share a link that will alert the user if the content they’re looking to share is more than 90 days old.
As you can see in the above sequence, the warning screen will alert users to the age of the article they’re looking to share. But it won’t stop them from sharing it if they choose.
Positive Initiative
t’s also a good initiative from Facebook to stop people from sharing news that might induce fear and confusion. And prevent people from taking the post out context regardless if its intentionally or unintentionally.
But Facebook is not the only social media platform that will ask you to be mindful of what you share. Recently, Twitter also rolled out a feature that would ask if you’ve read the article, before allowing you to retweet it.
Even WhatsApp has included measures to ensure that people are not just forwarding messages or news links unnecessarily.
Final Words
We live in times where we need to be careful about the information we spread. It’s bad enough that we are suffering through the coronavirus pandemic, it’s another when some people are adding on to the distress by spreading false information.
While companies like Facebook and Twitter are doing their best to stop the spread of fake news, the other half of the weight should be carried by us.
