Facebook will now warn you before you share Covid-19 articles

Facebook and other social media platforms have been struggling with misinformation around the pandemic. Facebook’s latest effort to help combat this is a pop-up warning before users share a Covid-related article.

This new notification screen is rolling out to Facebook users globally. Facebook wants to give users more context about the Covid-19 article they plan to share on the platform. It also says that the new notification screen “will help people understand the recency and source of the content before they share it”. This pop-up notification will appear for all Covid-19 content except those from government health authorities and global health organisations such as the World Health Organization.

As for any other articles about Covid-19, users will get a pop-up screen that highlights key details about the post. The top box will clearly state that this article talks about Covid-19 and show a link to Facebook’s Covid-19 information hub. The notification screen will also show the original source of the article, and when it was first shared on Facebook.

Despite the notification screen, it’s still up to the user if they want to share the Covid-19 article. Facebook isn’t stopping anyone from doing this but providing context might actually help in curbing the spread of misinformation. This feature is a continuation of the notification screen Facebook rolled out in June. 

Facebook started alerting users if the Covid-19 article they’re about to share is more than 90 days old. Here, the pop-up screen reads “This article is over 3 months old”, and if people want to continue sharing it or not.

Facebook continues to struggle with stopping the spread of Covid-19 misinformation on its platform. It’s already seen conspiracy videos on 5G and coronavirus, and the viral ‘Plandemic’ video grab millions of views and remain on Facebook for longer than expected.