Bye Bye Fake News!

Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on you again!

That's how I feel about misleading headlines.  Shame. On. Them.

At Casey & Sayre, we believe that a well-written headline should be both honest and intriguing.  But for the past year, Facebook News Feeds have been dominated by hoax-headlines that are purposefully misleading. We've dealt with everything from headlines saying Betty White "dyes" in her home (and when you click, you realize they are saying she dyes her hair) to blatant lies about new technology operating systems that offer insane features that aren't technically feasible. 

Well, friends, Facebook has heard how annoyed we are, and the company is doing something about it!  Starting this week, News Feeds will be equipped with a "false news story" notification option that you can click when this type of hoax is shown in your News Feed.  Similar to the "spam" or "hide from my timeline" options, the new "false news story" option will be in a dropdown menu on the top right of the news stories.  

There are already reports about the possibility of people misusing this feature, but here's to hoping that it keeps our News Feeds a bit more honest.  I'd like to never be fooled again!

Do you think the new "false news story" feature will help Facebook?

Facebook Launches "Save"

Scrolling through my Facebook feed, I always come across interesting sounding headlines.  But, when I'm just in the mood for some light internet-feed stalking, I don't want, or have time to, read huge long articles.

There are several apps to handle this type of situation.  Most notably, Pocket (with over 12 million users) and Instapaper.  These "read-it-later" apps let you tap to archive an article and come back to it when you have more time.

Well, now they have a bit more competition.  Facebook has launched "Save", a feature within the app that lets you add these articles to a folder for access at a later time.  Yes, just like Pocket, Instapaper AND the tested version of Save that Facebook tried back in 2012.  

Not sure what has taken Facebook so long to release this feature.  The company bought "Spool" (a startup that does this exact thing) two years ago, and it seems like a natural feature especially since there has been such a rise in articles posted on the news feed.

But, better late than never, I guess!  This is one feature that I will start using asap! Do you have a ton of articles you want to stockpile? What do you think of Facebook's newest feature release?