Being a website, a social networking platform who has more than a billion users in the world, Facebook really is something to put your money on. In fact, more people visit and read on Facebook than any other news site. This is why the Facebook team decided to start rolling out Facebook “News Tab” in the United States.
Many people regard Facebook as their “main and primary source of information.” They believe that the platform is not just for the use of entertainment; it’s also for business and current events.
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Facebook’s news tab
According to the Facebook team, releasing the newest Facebook news tab is a move to promote “quality journalism” to all its Facebook users. Furthermore, they said that this move is to shed and completely eradicate their reputation of being a platform prone to misinformation.
In a blog post, Facebook said that this move is relevant as there are people in the platform who benefit and enjoy personalized experiences on Facebook; not just that, some people want to exceed individual experiences.
People want and benefit from personalized experiences on Facebook, but we know there is reporting that transcends individual experience. We want to support both.”
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How would Facebook’s news tab appear on the app?
Do note that this feature is available in the United States only as of now. Facebook said that they would be rolling this out to everyone on the platform any time soon.
As per the team, Facebook’s news tab will be separated from the normal feed of users. This tab would include articles from Facebook’s partner news organizations and companies.
The newest News Tab would carefully be curated by a team of professional human editors. They would be presenting it in a style similar to how Apple projects their news with their new news app.
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Facebook’s News Tab would be led and driven by their newest feature, “today’s stories: which would contain and highlight the day’s top current events and happenings in both the U.S. and all over the world.
The company disclosed that this new tab would be dubbed as Facebook News. The section would allow people to have more control over what they see on their profile as well as the ability to explore and discover a wider and better range of news interests.
Algorithmic and human curation personalization
Facebook said that they are tailor-fitting how people would be given news on their individual profiles. The team said that the news section that would be shown in people’s profiles would be based on human curation and algorithmic personalization.
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Facebook News would be personalized on what you normally read and what types of articles you take time on reading, as per Facebook. Over time, it will develop to the things you normally have interest on for a more “personalized” effect.
Apart from that, the team also said that you have the option to choose what you want to see in Facebook’s news tab as you can hide publishers, articles, subjects, and topics you are not interested to see.
Facebook hoaxes
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook Chief Executive Officer (CEO), said that this move they’ve decided to do is to counter and to separate what “professional content” is from those hoaxes that go viral.
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Product Manager Mona Sarantakos and Vice President for News Partnership Campbell Brown reported that they’ve spoken and made deals with various news organizations and finalized how people would be given the news.
We talked to news organizations about what they’d like to see included in a news tab, how their stories should be presented and what analytics to provide.”
Facebook made no mention of how many publishers and news organizations are going to participate when it launches. However, they said that the number of these organizations grow over time as they would be diverse, mixing local news, general news, trending news, and worldwide news.
Effectivity concerns
Although it’s helpful and effective, would people really be interested in having a news tab in their Facebook profile? Would Facebook fanatics want to read news through Facebook? Hopefully, the team decides to roll this new feature out to other countries as well, to gauge whether their move is effective or not.
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Did you know that here in the Philippines alone, there are 62 million active Facebook users as of December 2018? That figure has exponentially grown now, though. That being said, Facebook’s news tab would really be of a big help here in the Philippines.
What do you think about Facebook’s new news tab? Will this really address Zuckerberg’s concern to promote quality journalism? Or would this be a flop?