Nothing is more annoying than a “friend” on Facebook who goes back to a post hours, days, or even months later and changes it in order to make themselves look better. Fortunately, Facebook at least marks posts as “edited” when shifty people hop on sports bandwagons, take down fake news links, or otherwise try to hide their mistakes. But now they’ve made that a little harder to spot.
The Verge did some experimenting and discovered Facebook now hides any edit data under a drop-down menu. Instead of clearly marking posts as “edited,” you now need to click the little arrow in the far right hand corner of a status. You know, the little grey one? The one you only ever click to mute somebody’s long rants about their favorite TV show? Yeah, if they’ve edited the post, you’ll see a little “edit history” button in that menu. At the very bottom. Otherwise, there’s nothing.
Here’s an example of my sterling maturity:
And now the edit, raw off my Facebook Wall:
Mostly this is just annoying, even if the edit history itself is at least still public and available for screenshotting/shame. But keep in mind, Facebook is struggling with the “fake news” issue and wants to be better. It’s one thing when editing is front and center, and quite another when you have to dig for it in a menu most people don’t even look at while browsing.
It’s not clear why Facebook is making it harder to spot edited posts, but if it’s serious about fake news and accountability, it should really start by making it simple to hold everyone on Facebook to their word, if only in the court of their friends and family.
(Via The Verge)