Social media giant, Facebook took on Twitter to announce that it will start testing a pop-up that will ask users if they’re sure they want to share an article that they haven’t opened yet. The pop-up will prompt users to promote more informed sharing of news articles. However, they can also choose to continue sharing the article without reading it if they want.
This is similar to the “ want to read the article first?” prompt by Twitter that was launched last year in June in order to help promote informed discussion on the platform. Twitter has not given its insight on how much “read article first” prompt makes a difference. However, it is to be noted that the prompt results in fewer offensive replies in the future by 11 percent. They also pointed out that 34 percent of people revised their initial reply or decided not to send their reply at all as against an offensive tweet.
Facebook has been struggling with a past of misinformation being spread on the platform. The new message prompt shows that not opening the article can lead to “missing key facts.” as headlines can be a misleading or incomplete picture a lot of times.
Facebook in its official tweet said, “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.”
The prompt on Facebook will roll out eventually if not immediately on all devices.
As reported by The Verge, a Facebook spokesperson has said the test would be rolled out to 6 percent of Android users worldwide.