Facebook’s latest attempt to help combat the spread of potentially harmful COVID-19 misinformation involves a new notification screen that will provide more context about an article or other link, like when it was first shared and its source.
Facebook acknowledged that old stories shared out of their original context play a role in spreading misinformation. The social media company said “news publishers in particular” have expressed concern about old stories being recirculated as though they’re breaking news.
“Over the past several months, our internal research found that the timeliness of an article is an important piece of context that helps people decide what to read, trust and share,” Facebook Vice President of Feed and Stories John Hegeman wrote on the company’s blog.
This new notification screen is part of an ongoing series of measures Facebook has been employing since March to try to prevent its platform from becoming a conduit for dangerous coronavirus-related conspiracy theories and other forms of misinformation. At the onset of the pandemic, the company began putting vetted coronavirus information from trusted health and medical authorities at the top of the News Feed, as well as the above-mentioned COVID-19 information hub.
Yet Facebook has had to take more active measures to combat the fast-moving spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories in the months since, including banning anti-mask groups and placing anti-misinformation messages into the News Feeds of users who may have engaged with fake coronavirus stories. In May, the “Plandemic” hoax video went viral, causing more headaches for Facebook’s moderation efforts. Just last month, another video from Breitbart News, a trusted Facebook News partner, containing false information about coronavirus cures and measures to combat its spread went viral again. Facebook later said it would investigate why the video remained live for so long.
In a blog post announcing the new feature, Facebook said that it is now considering other kinds of notification screens to reduce misinformation, including pop-ups for posts about COVID-19 that would provide context about source links and steer users toward public health resources.
