Facebook Warns User to Share News or Article Older Than Three Months

Facebook now gives a warning when a user wants to share a news article or other article older than three months.

After that, the user still decides for himself whether he finds the article relevant enough to post on. The new feature will be rolled out worldwide from Friday.

According to the social media site, the ‘age’ of a post is an essential part of the context in which people determine which articles they read, trust and share.

Particularly among newspaper and magazine publishers, concerns are growing about sharing old articles as ‘new facts’, because it can paint a wrong picture of real current events.

Some publishers have already taken measures against this by labelling older news items on the site.

Facebook says it wants to use the warnings for other purposes in the coming months.

For example, for messages related to Covid-19, the social media site is working on a notification that identifies the source and directs people to a corona website with reliable information.