Beware Of Thumbs Up, Facebook's New Feature Will Warn You If You Share News Without Reading

JAKARTA - Facebook is trialling a feature that will warn users when they want to share certain news. The alert will appear on the screen of the user who shared the news link without first reading it.

The warning is a new effort by the company to prevent the spread of misinformation and hoaxes on its platform. As is known, Facebook itself has repeatedly been the victim of the spread of fake news over the last few years.

Facebook's new feature marks a new chapter of a long-running fight between the company over false information. So, will the feature run effectively and appropriately?

Starting today, we're testing a way to promote more informed sharing of news articles. If you go to share a news article link you haven't opened, we'll show a prompt encouraging you to open it and read it, before sharing it with others. pic.twitter.com/brlMnlg6Qg

— Facebook Newsroom (@fbnewsroom) May 10, 2021

The social media giant shared the announcement of the new feature via newsroom's official Facebook Twitter account. In a tweet shared on Monday, May 10, 2021, Facebook revealed that from that day on the company was testing the features of spreading news articles.

"If you share an unopened news link (read, -red), we'll show you a notification to open and read first before sharing it," Facebook Newsroom wrote via Twitter.

Facebook explains that this step is necessary so that each user can know the content of the shared article. So, in the future, the spread of articles and fake news can be minimized.

Admittedly, this is an innovative step that the company offers. In addition to inviting users to read news, Facebook also makes its users more responsible for shared articles or news.

However, it seems, the battle over Facebook and fake news is still going on. Moreover, last month, Facebook and Twitter were known to remove more than 100 uploads and URLs. The removal was the company's response to the government's request to prevent the spread of fake news around the pandemic.

Also Has Other Features to Prevent Misinformation Spread

As mentioned earlier, this is not the first feature the company has developed. After all, the fight against the spread of fake news is a long and challenging road.

Last month, the company also launched a feature aimed at preventing the spread of fake news. The widely usable feature serves to label user posts. The goal of course is to keep users from getting confused when choosing between fake news and real news.

"We believe that people should know if the news they are reading comes from publications that may be under the influence of the government," Facebook wrote as reported by The Quint, Tuesday, May 11, 2021.