Facebook is borrowing one of the features that Twitter implemented last year. As the Facebook team mentions, it wants users to engage with what they share on the platform and read any content before sharing it.
Facebook wants you to read the news before you share it
In a new attempt to curb fake news and misinformation on the platform, Facebook is trying a new dynamic. This time it is not applying algorithms or moderation options, but appealing directly to users.
As they shared in a tweet, they want to incentivize users to read articles before sharing them on Facebook. Sharing news simply because the title seems interesting is a bad habit that makes it easier for those who want to viralize fake news or promote worthless content.
Facebook wants to make users aware of this and encourage them to share content responsibly with a little reminder. When it detects that the user is going to share a news item without opening the source URL, it will display a pop-up message, as you see in the image above.
Of course, it will not prevent the user from continuing the process of sharing the article, but it will be a constant reminder to check the information before passing it to our friends.
Recall that Twitter also launched a similar test last year, with small reminders encouraging to read articles before sharing them with other users. And as they mentioned a few months later, that test yielded good results, with more users reading the content they share:
- They open articles 40% more often after seeing the post.
- Users opening articles before RT increased by 33%.
- Some people didn’t end up RTing after opening the article.
We will have to see if Facebook achieves similar results, and manages to persuade users to stop this habit of automatically sharing everything that seems interesting without checking its content.
