{"id":19116,"date":"2020-06-10T06:15:12","date_gmt":"2020-06-10T06:15:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rbsitsoftwaresolution.com\/blog\/facebook-news-launches-to-all-in-us-with-addition-of-local-news-and-video.html"},"modified":"2020-06-10T06:15:12","modified_gmt":"2020-06-10T06:15:12","slug":"facebook-news-launches-to-all-in-us-with-addition-of-local-news-and-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rbsitsoftwaresolution.in\/blog\/facebook-news-launches-to-all-in-us-with-addition-of-local-news-and-video.html","title":{"rendered":"Facebook News launches to all in US with addition of local news and video"},"content":{"rendered":"

Facebook News, the social network\u2019s dedicated section devoted to journalism, is today launching for all users in the U.S. The feature was first introduced in October 2019<\/a> as a limited test in the U.S.\u00a0The product represents Facebook\u2019s much-debated<\/a> new effort in wooing publishers to its platform with the promise of increased distribution.<\/p>\n

In addition to the nationwide launch, Facebook has also added local news to its News section.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s impossible to properly cover Facebook News without noting how the company has had a long and troubled history with regard to how it handles news. Years ago, Facebook offered a short list of trending stories across its network. But it later fired<\/a> the human editors who curated that news, and its algorithms immediately<\/a> posted fake news to the untended list. That feature was removed<\/a> in June 2018.<\/p>\n

Facebook has also over the years attempted to serve publishers with poor results.<\/p>\n

It hosted \u201cInstant Articles\u201d that restricted advertising, subscriptions and the recirculation modules publishers relied on, leading many to abandon the feature<\/a>. It touted<\/a> the \u201cshift to video,\u201d but inflated<\/a> its video metrics, and then pulled back on paying publishers, wiping out some businesses<\/a>. In 2018, it decided to prioritize friends and family posts<\/a> in its News Feed, shrinking referrals to news outlets.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the not insignificant matter of Facebook\u2019s role in spreading fake news \u2014 including for years the distribution of un-fact-checked links published by biased organizations. Its platform has also been used for the spread of propaganda<\/a> and disinformation. It has been called out as being too favorable<\/a> to one side<\/a> or the other<\/a>. (But all that\u2019s a whole<\/a> other<\/a> kettle<\/a> of fish.<\/a>)<\/p>\n

This time around, Facebook is trying a different tack with regard to News.<\/p>\n

The new product uses journalists<\/a> to program Facebook News in addition to algorithms<\/a> to better personalize story selection. Users can react and share articles, but not comment. Users are also able to hide articles, topics and publishers they don\u2019t want to see, which can become problematic in terms of broadening someone\u2019s exposure to the \u201cother side.\u201d<\/p>\n

To qualify<\/a> for inclusion in Facebook News, publishers will have to serve a sufficiently large audience and abide by integrity standards. Facebook doesn\u2019t detail exactly how it makes determinations around integrity but says<\/a> it looks at signals such as misinformation as identified by third-party fact-checkers, clickbait, engagement bait or use of scraped content, for example.<\/p>\n

The News tab will appear to all U.S. users as a bookmark (under the three-lined \u201cmore\u201d menu) on mobile, Facebook says. Those who frequently visit the bookmark will see News available as a tab (a button in the Facebook app) sooner.<\/p>\n

Since the announcement last fall, Facebook has added new features in Facebook News, including breaking news alerts, timely news digests (e.g. \u201cCOVID-19 News\u201d or \u201cUnrest in America\u201d), targeted notifications and more.<\/p>\n

The notifications will appear at the top and may include alerts of a live video or breaking news \u2014 for example, you may currently see live coverage of George Floyd\u2019s funeral or perhaps a breaking news alert about coronavirus.<\/p>\n

Facebook is also now testing news video, which it didn\u2019t have last fall, and it has introduced a local news section to Facebook News. The latter brings thousands more local and regional publications into the news experience across more than 6,000 towns and cities.<\/p>\n

The company tells TechCrunch the majority of its publishers are now local outlets, as a result. In addition, it has over 200 general news publishers.<\/p>\n

Facebook already had a way for users to keep up with local stories by way of its \u201cToday In\u201d news discovery experience, which had been a separate tab. In the next several weeks, the company says it will combine that tab\u2019s content with Facebook News to make its News section a single place for users to keep up with local news.<\/p>\n

The News feature is live now on mobile, but the desktop tab has yet to launch.<\/p>\n

Article source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/techcrunch\/social\/~3\/HZ2YQh1KNJU\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Facebook News, the social network\u2019s dedicated section devoted to journalism, is today launching for all users in the U.S. The feature was first introduced in October 2019 as a limited <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[10,7,14,15,6,12,11],"class_list":["post-19116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-update","tag-computer-news","tag-downloads","tag-microsoft-download-news","tag-networking-updates","tag-technology-update","tag-wordpress-plugin-download","tag-wordpress-theme-download"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t