Facebook Inc on Tuesday confirmed plans for a News Tab that would be edited by seasoned journalists, in a departure from its long-standing practice of letting algorithms dictate a user’s experience.
A human team is to select relevant, reliable breaking and top news stories, the company said.
Other sections of the tab would rely on algorithms to figure out a user’s interests based on “signals” such as pages followed, interactions with online news or subscriptions to publications.
‘PERSONALIZED’
“Our goal with the News Tab is to provide a personalized, highly relevant experience for people,” Facebook head of news partnerships Campbell Brown told reporters. “For the Top News section of the tab we’re pulling together a small team of journalists to ensure we’re highlighting the right stories.”
However, the majority of stories people see would be determined by software, Brown said.
The tab would be separate from the trademark news feed at Facebook that displays updates and content from people’s friends.
Facebook Watch already allows users to peruse news shows funded by the social network and other on-demand online content.
UNDER PRESSURE
California-based Facebook has launched an array of initiatives to support or bolster journalism in the past few years as social media have been under intense pressure to avoid becoming a tool to spread misinformation.
“Working with news industry to get Facebook’s News Tab right is our goal and focus this year,” Brown said on Twitter earlier this month. “Still early days but we are getting tremendous partner feedback on the product. I believe we can provide people on Facebook a better news experience.”
Facebook will reportedly pay some publishers to license news content for the tab.
Earlier this year, Facebook cofounder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said he wanted “to make sure that to the extent that we can, we’re funding as much high-quality journalism as possible.”
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