Facebook to begin warning people when they share old news

Facebook is launching a new feature to warn users if they’re about to share a news article that is more than 90 days old, the social media platform announced Thursday. 

Facebook said the feature is aimed at helping users have “the context they need to make informed decisions” about what to share on the platform. 

“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 said in the announcement. “News publishers in particular have expressed concerns about older stories being shared on social media as current news, which can misconstrue the state of current events.”

With the new feature, a notification will pop up with a warning before people share an old article. The platform will still allow people to continue sharing the old article “if they decide an article is still relevant.” 

Facebook said it will also be testing other notification screens, including potentially adding a notification for links mentioning COVID-19. 

Facebook has been criticized for its role in the spread of misinformation. 

The platform has also opted out of fact-checking information shared by politicians, unlike Twitter which has placed fact-check warnings on posts shared by politicians, including President Trump. 

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg defended the decision not to fact check lawmakers last month, after Twitter placed warnings on Trump’s tweets for the first time. Zuckerberg said he doesn’t think Facebook should be “the arbiter of truth of everything that people say online.”