This article was published on July 2, 2020

Facebook and Instagram will remind you to wear a mask atop your feed


Facebook and Instagram will remind you to wear a mask atop your feed

Back in May, it seemed the number of new coronavirus cases was beginning to go down. Then, as states began to reopen (often against the advice of health officials), the number of new cases shot up dramatically — now at record daily levels that can’t be explained away by increased testing.

One of the primary culprits is the most obvious one: many Americans still aren’t wearing masks.

Facebook now wants to try and convince more people to wear a mask by prominently displaying an alert atop people’s news feeds on Instagram and Facebook. You’ll see the alert along with links to Facebook’s coronavirus information center as well as the CDC’s official coronavirus page.

Let’s be honest — if people are ignoring the death of fellow Americans because of their ‘freedom’ to not wear a mask, I doubt a message on their Facebook pages is going to do much. Still, maybe, just maybe,  it’ll nudge a couple of potential superspreaders in the right direction.

In related news, Twiter says it’ll finally give us an edit button when people start wearing masks.

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So, fellow Americans, please?

Or, you know, just do it for the lives.

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