Facebook is following Twitter's lead by adding new alert prompts when users go to share an article on Facebook if they haven't already opened the link themselves first.
As explained by Facebook:
"Starting today, we’re testing a way to promote more informed sharing of news articles. If you go to share a news article link you haven’t opened, we’ll show a prompt encouraging you to open it and read it, before sharing it with others."
As you can see, the prompts will alert people that they're about to share a link they haven't opened, with a brief explainer on the potential issues with this approach.
That, ideally, will get more people to reconsider sharing links without understanding the full context, which could help to reduce misinformation, and angst, among Facebook users.
As noted, Twitter added warnings on sharing unopened links last June, which it says have lead to users opening articles 40% more often, and have slowed the rate of ill-informed amplification.
Twitter's results show the effectiveness of small measures of friction in the sharing process, which can lead to more informed, measured debate and discussion, by simply prompting users to take a moment to consider their action.
