+6011 1144 5462#TECH: Facebook provides additional context about timeliness of articles
10 July 2020
IN ensuring people have the context they need to make informed decisions about what they share on Facebook, the social media platform rolled out a notification screen which will let users know if the news articles they are about to share are more than 90 days old.
Applicable to all Facebook users, the notification screen will appear once you click the share button on articles older than 90 days, but will allow sharing if they decide the article is still relevant.
The decision was made after Facebook conducted surveys asking people what kind of news they want to see on Facebook, and the answers continually show they want information that is timely and credible which brought the first context button in 2018, providing information about the sources of articles in News Feed.
Over the past several months, Facebook’s 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.
Over the next few months, Facebook says it will also test other uses of notification screens.
For posts with links mentioning Covid-19 for example, the company is exploring a similar notification screen that provides information about the source of the link and directs people to the Covid-19 Information Centre for authoritative health information.
By providing more contexts, Facebook aims to make it easier for people to identify content that’s timely, reliable and most valuable to them.
Source: NST
Applicable to all Facebook users, the notification screen will appear once you click the share button on articles older than 90 days, but will allow sharing if they decide the article is still relevant.
The decision was made after Facebook conducted surveys asking people what kind of news they want to see on Facebook, and the answers continually show they want information that is timely and credible which brought the first context button in 2018, providing information about the sources of articles in News Feed.
Over the past several months, Facebook’s 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.
At the same time, news publishers too have expressed concerns about older stories being re-shared on social media, which misconstrue as current events. Some news publishers have already taken steps to address the issue by prominently labelling older articles on their own website to prevent outdated news from being used in misleading ways.
Over the next few months, Facebook says it will also test other uses of notification screens.
For posts with links mentioning Covid-19 for example, the company is exploring a similar notification screen that provides information about the source of the link and directs people to the Covid-19 Information Centre for authoritative health information.
By providing more contexts, Facebook aims to make it easier for people to identify content that’s timely, reliable and most valuable to them.
Source: NST
