Facebook shows warning when sharing articles more than three months old

Facebook will send users a notification if they want to share an article on the social platform that is older than three months. With the notification, Facebook hopes to prevent old news from being shared as a current event.

Users can choose to ignore the warning. Facebook emphasizes that the notification is only intended to let people know that they are about to share news that is at least 90 days old.

Publishers, in particular, have expressed concerns about sharing old posts on social media as it could misrepresent things, Facebook writes. Some publishers are already putting labels on older articles to prevent users from using them in a misleading way on social media. Fact-checking often needs to be done to make it clear that news items and photos are older and not related to a current event.

In addition, the social media company states that its own research shows that the topicality of an article is important for context and helps readers determine what to read, trust and share.