Most of us have seen it at some point, someone we follow on social media sharing an article with outdated information. This happens far too many times be it in regards to politics, a certain individual or just about anything. You hurriedly click on the link and you end up reading an article that is one, two, three or even five years old. Some of the people sharing such articles may not be aware it is old news and they may think they are onto something when sharing it.
This has been a problem on Facebook as with most other social sites. For Facebook, it plans to tackle the problem by rolling out an update that will alert you when you are about to share an article that is older than 90 days.
This update has just been rolled out and you should be seeing it on your end soon. The feature will not prevent users from sharing the old news but will just warn you that the article you are about to share is old. This will be helpful for those who innocently want to share an article but are not aware it was posted a while back.
The main aim of this update is to tackle the spread of misinformation and confusion that may be brought about by old news. We have seen this happen a lot, someone sees a trending topic and they rush to Google and when they find an article, outdated for that matter, talking about that, they immediately share it on their social feeds. What the article covers may have nothing to do with the topic of the day but if someone does not know that, they may end up misinforming their followers.
The latest update has been added less than a month after Facebook rolled out a tool that helps users get rid of their old posts easily. We all have posted some embarrassing things that we may not want to be associated with anymore.
Also Read: Facebook Debuts Messenger Kids in Kenya and Sub-Saharan Africa
