Headlines and titles of articles are important. From a publishing standpoint, a catchy headline can draw in readers, but sometimes a headline that’s too inflammatory might cause people to get upset and share it or make comments without actually reading it. This in turn can cause problems with misinformation.
Facebook is hoping to curb that because the company is working on a new feature they plan to test that will make users read an article before sharing it. This will apply to about 6% of their global users on Android, according to Facerbook. As you can see in the screenshot above, users will be prompted to read an article before sharing it.
Presumably Facebook will know if you haven’t opened the article yet when you click the Share button. However, it seems that users can still go ahead and share it anyway even if they haven’t read it, but the pause is in hopes that users will want to read it before sharing so that they are more informed about their actions.
For example, an article might have a misleading headline which might prompt you to share it, but if you read it, you might have a better idea of what the article is actually about and you could change your mind. Whether or not this will make a difference in misinformation remains to be seen, but we suppose every bit helps.