Facebook will alert users if an article they are about to share is over three months old to avoid misleading people with outdated news.
As part of the new feature, when the user clicks the 'Share' button, Facebook posts that contain an article older than 90 days will generate a pop-up notification.
The social network, which rolls out the feature globally, said that the decision is in response to news outlet concerns.
Old news stories may go viral on social media years after they've been published first, which might misinterpret current affairs.
Several news outlets have also added to their reports the necessary age identifiers to prevent misunderstanding or distortion.
New feature to avoid misleading data
The social network platform said the change would help people 'make informed decisions' about what they share and avoid 'using misleading ways.'
John Hegeman, vice president of feed and stories at Facebook, noted that an article's timeliness is an essential part of the context that helps people decide what to read, trust, and share.
"Through providing more context, our goal is to make it easier for people to identify content that's timely, reliable, and most valuable to them," Hegeman said in a blog post.
As part of the update, a box with the message 'This article is over three months old' will appear when a user clicks the 'Share' button underneath an old story posted on Facebook.
Then the Facebook user can 'continue' and post the article as an alternative, or 'Go Back' instead, and prevent their followers from being fooled by old content.
The latter option allows individuals to continue sharing an article if they decide that the content is still relevant.
Facebook aims to reduce misinformation, which can still be spread by old news, even though it was accurate at the time, by giving users a little nudge to confirm whether they are aware the material is not quite fresh.
News publishers have voiced concerns about the sharing of older stories on social media as current news, which can misunderstand current events.
For example, news articles from certain websites, even though they are many years old, may appear prominently on the homepage under a 'most read' section.
Unless explicitly labeled as old, readers will be able to share and post the article without looking at the date, thinking it's recent news.
In this way, news that goes viral via social media platforms can generally cause confusion and misunderstanding over many topics.
"Some news publishers have already taken steps to address this on their own websites by prominently labeling older articles to prevent outdated news from being used in misleading ways," said Hegeman.
Pop-up notifications
Hegeman also disclosed in the blog post that Facebook is looking at how to adapt those pop-up notification screens in other ways.
One such concept is for posts with links referencing Covid-19, which would reveal the source specifics and guide people to the authoritative health information. Facebook also has the much-touted Covid-19 Information Center.
For each Facebook user, this information center is a landing page. It serves as a portal for easy access to reliable information about the viral disease from sources such as the World Health Organization, the NHS, and the government.
Facebook has already sent myth-busting messages to users who interacted with posts about COVID-19 that contain 'harmful misinformation.'
The social network sends messages to news feeds for users if they interact with a post that the company has since removed.
It includes people who liked, replied, commented or clicked on the harmful material, including conspiracy theories and false claims that link 5G to coronavirus spread.
