Facebook Tests New Warning Prompts for users

Similar to Twitter, Facebook is now following its lead by alerting users via new test warning prompts to stop them by sharing the articles they haven't read.

As explained by Facebook on their Newsroom,

"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."

This tool will then ask users to read the article before sharing it with others by prompting them with some explainatory brief which will also help to reduce misinformation, and angst, among Facebook users.

Twitter added such warnings last year in June where it prompted the users to take a moment to consider their action.

Facebook is working on something similar and it also has warnings in place for when users go to share an article that's more than 90 days old, which aims to slow misdirected discussion around older content,  while Facebook's algorithm also takes into account the amount of time one spend reading an article after opening a link to measure their relative interest for the content. 

As many people have a habit to read the headline and understand the whole story without opening the link, this prompt tool will thus alert the users to read the full story before sharing it on their news feed, if such small measures are considered it will get more people to actually take an extra moment to read the full context.