We’ve all seen a friend share an apparently fresh piece of news on Facebook, just to open the link and discover it’s three years old.
Fortunately, starting today, Facebook will alert you before they share an article more than 90 days old. You’ll see the warning before sharing an article. Obviously, once in a while old news is still relevant, so you can still proceed to share an old article if you think it’s still relevant.
Facebook says that “the timeliness of an article is an important piece of context that helps people decide what to read, trust and share” and that publishers have been concerned over old news misconstruing current events.
Twitter recently piloted a feature that would warn people before sharing an article they haven’t, you know, actually read. Along with Facebook‘s update today, it’s nice to see the social media giants taking a more proactive approach to fighting disinformation on their platforms.
