Will Facebook Srew Up Journalism Again With Its News Section?

Late last week, Facebook began testing what looks like its late attempt to handle journalism on its network by rolling out Facebook News, a dedicated section that’s separate from the News Feed as well as licenses content from the outlets that write it, to its mobile app users.

This is not the first time the social giant has tried to enter the news business. But it has long been infamous for messing up the field. The platform helped provide false data for news outlets’ disastrous pivots to video, then it pulled funding and left them in disappointment. Furthermore, it removed reader apps and launched the Instant Articles platform that was abandoned. Worse, Facebook has screwed so much with its News Feed continually that it hurt publishers who relied on the platform to distribute news.

Meanwhile, the Watch tab that the social firm rolled out as a space for journalism also appears to fail although the company tried to get users engaged to it. So we have every right to believe that it will fail again, causing harm to parties in the process. According to TechCrunch, all offerings from Facebook are conditional, and it sucks most of the content value into itself, so maybe publishers should attract readers and profit to their own properties and websites instead of buying Facebook’s stuff.

But here’s how the Facebook News section works.

The social giant announced that the News product will include a curated section called Today’s Stories managed by its staff, offering personalization features in accordance with the news users view, share, and follow so that the section stays fresh and interesting. Besides, there will be topic sections, and users will be able to link news subscriptions and hide specific articles, publishers, and topics they don’t like.

By clicking on a link, users will be redirected to the website of the publisher instead of being kept in the app only, the Wall Street Journal reported.

According to Facebook, the decision to pick a curated model comes from media’s concerns that there are limitations with machine learnings and an automated system would not appreciate in-depth work. Previously, the company offered a human-moderated trending news section, but after an extremely controversial article from Gizmodo in 2016 about claims from Facebook workers that the tech giant prevented the spread of conservative sites’ articles, the section is ditched.

This time, the firm insists that the editors that run the curated section will be completely independent in terms of editorial work and are allowed to run content reflecting poorly on the company. However, we still have to wait and see if Facebook will keep its word.

In addition, Facebook is paying a lot in journalism, with reports saying that it had multi-million deals with some outlets.

The fact that Facebook partner with Breitbart, a long-time disinformation hub has caused disputes. As reported by the New York Times, the social giant is not letting them participate, but special counsel Madihha Ahussain at Muslim Advocates, and a leading civil rights organization, mentioned Breitbart to Gizmodo as a “virulent anti-Muslim site” that is closely related to white nationalism.

Facebook stated that it will work to boost local journalism by establishing partnerships with local news publishers.

This new product will face tense competition from other players, including Apple News Plus that was described as a disappointment to publishers. Moreover, Facebook News will have to go against Amazon Kindle Magazines that targets a different segment in the news market.

One last thing is to wait and see if mobile users like a new section.

About this matter, Laura Bassett, co-founder of Save Journalism Project said that: