Facebook launched Related Articles in 2013 to help users discover news articles that they find interesting about the same topic. Currently, these related articles are shown in News Feed after users have read an article. The social network today announced that it’s testing a new version of this feature which will display several links to fact-checked Related Stories underneath the main linked story.
The implementation is not that different from how Related Articles are currently displayed on Facebook. However, in this test, they will be displayed before you read the article and not after like they currently are. Facebook will display these links directly in News Feed before the user clicks on the main story’s link.
Facebook says that the idea behind displaying related articles before people actually read the main linked story is to provide them with “easier access to additional perspectives and information.” These links will also point to articles that have been fact-checked by third parties, it’s yet another push by Facebook to clamp down on the fake news epidemic.
The idea behind this move appears to be making it easier for users to get additional viewpoints on the stories that they’re interested in and the viewpoints that they might have otherwise missed had Facebook not shown the relevant articles directly in their News Feed.
Filed in . Read more about Facebook. Source: newsroom.fb