SAN FRANCISCO, May 12 — Is Facebook drawing inspiration from Twitter? Mark Zuckerberg’s social network has unveiled a new test on its platform.
This time, the objective is to encourage users to read an article before sharing it. One more step in its campaign against misinformation.
Facebook seems to be taking a page from one of its competitor’s newer features and applying it to its own space.
From now on, users of the social network will receive an alert if they are about to share an article that they have not even opened.
The American giant announced the launch of this test via its official Facebook Newsroom Twitter account on Monday, May 10: “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.”
According to information gathered by The Verge, a Facebook spokesperson said that the test would be deployed globally, but for only 6 per cent of Facebook users on Android. Nothing was specified about iOS app users.
Users receiving the warning will be able to choose to open the article to view it before sharing it or continue without clicking on the link.
“Sharing articles without reading them may mean missing key facts,” warns the prompt.
With this alert, Mark Zuckerberg’s platform hopes to stem the tide of false information relayed via its platform. Twitter had launched a similar initiative in June 2020 before rolling it out in September.
According to the results obtained after the test, Twitter confirmed the usefulness of such alerts.
The platform observed an increase in the opening of articles before being retweeted while others decided not to share the publication in question at all.
This kind of warning could have a positive impact on the spread of false information on the web while making users more responsible. — ETX Studio
Source:
MalayMail