Facebook starts test with ‘read before sharing’ popup

Facebook is going to start a test, in which the company shows a popup if people want to share links to articles they have not read. Sharing unread articles will continue to be possible if people click ‘continue’ in the popup.

Showing the pop-up should get people to read the article first, the company said . Facebook sees it as a ‘for a more informed way of sharing articles’ on the platform. It is unknown whether the pop-up will be visible in the Benelux immediately. This is currently a test, so not all users will find the pop-up immediately.

Facebook follows with the move Twitter, which implemented such a feature in September last year. Twitter had already tested the feature back then. People would be 40 percent more likely to open an article after seeing the notification. The number of people who first opened an article before retweeting it increased by 33 percent. Sometimes people would not have posted the retweets after opening the article in question. Twitter does not provide percentages of this.