Newsletter 
Social media giant, Facebook will show a pop-up warning message, anytime a user shares a COVID-19 related article.
Facebook in the past has put in tremendous efforts to curb the spread of fake news related to coronavirus. And now, this new feature will be a great addition to help stop the spread of fake news.
Notably, the notification will pop up for articles that are over 90 days older. Moreover, the notification will include a link to Facebook’s coronavirus information center.
Here readers will be able to trace down information like how old is the article and when it was first shared. Earlier we have highlighted that Facebook removed over 7 million pieces of coronavirus misinformation.
Facebook warning message will not appear on articles from credible sources
Facebook in a blog post revealed that users who share articles that are credible from global health authorities, will not be shown this warning message.
Only those articles, which are over 90 days old, will get this pop-up. However, Facebook will continue to allow its user to share the information if it is relevant.
In the past, Facebook has repeatedly acknowledged that old stories and incredible information play a vital role in spreading misinformation.
And this pandemic which is spreading at a faster pace is a hot topic among ill-minded people. Fortunately, this extra layer of context will help Facebook stop spreading rumors about COVID-19.
Content posted by government authorities will not have this notification
As we have pointed out earlier, if a content shared by the user comes from government authorities then, this notification will not pop up.
Similarly, content posted by government authorities and global health organizations, like the World Health Organization, will not be having this warning pop-up message.
In the post, Facebook also points out that the timeliness of an article is very important to help people understand and trust the information.
Moreover, news publishers were at the forefront showing concerns about older and incredible information shared on social media platforms.
This new feature is already live for Facebook users
This new pop-up warning message is already rolling out for the users globally. Moreover, it will help people to give more context about the article related to COVID-19.
Besides, it will help people to understand whether the information is worth their time and consumption. It will also help them understand if the content needs to be forwarded to other people or not.
If the article shared is over 3 months old, then the pop-up will show “This article is over 3 months old.” However, Facebook will not stop its users to share older articles.
The context here is to provide details regarding the articles shared so that people who read the shared article have all the information before consuming the content.