Facebook on Friday began rolling out its dedicated "news tab" with professionally produced content - the latest move by the social network to promote journalism and shed its reputation as a platform for misinformation. The tab, being tested with some US users, will be separate from a user's normal feed and include articles from partner news organizations. The mix of stories in Facebook News will be determined by algorithmic "personalization" based on an user's preferences and data, and by actual journalists choosing content.
"I've been talking to news publishers and journalists for a few years about how we can do more to support high quality journalism on Facebook," Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said. The new tab is "dedicated to high quality news and personalized to your interests," he wrote on his Facebook page.
The company said users would have "more control over the stories they see, and the ability to explore a wider range of their news interests, directly within the Facebook app." Facebook is expected to pay some of the news organizations that will contribute but has yet to disclose full details.
The social network has partnered with some 200 news organizations including The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Washington Post, CBS News, BuzzFeed, Fox News, the Boston Globe, Bloomberg and Vanity Fair. Facebook said it would begin an initial test rollout which would "showcase local original reporting" from publications in major cities "beginning with New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Philadelphia, Houston, Washington DC, Miami, Atlanta and Boston."
Topic sections will include business, entertainment, health, science and technology, and sports. The move represents Facebook's efforts to reboot its relationship with news organizations, many of which have been critical of the platform for failing to curb the spread of misinformation and for taking much of the online ad revenue.
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