Facebook’s recent woes with misinformation surrounding not only the U.S. Elections but also the COVID-19 pandemic have led the social media platform to look for more viable ways to serve news and content. The company initially rolled out its News Tab in the U.S. back in 2019. Now, the feature is making its way to users in the United Kingdom. The Facebook News feature filters out content based on user interest and publisher reputation.
Facebook News allows users to access news and articles based on categories such as business, entertainment, sport, and even the top news or stories of the day. Using the feature, Facebook will provide the news digests which summarize the developments during the major events, like the COVID-19 pandemic or the U.S. Elections. In addition to aggregation, the content collated in the Facebook News Tab will be ranked based on authoritative sources and original reporting. This will help users discern credible sources before sharing.
The introduction of Facebook News also comes in the shadow of Australia implementing legislation that will require organizations such as Facebook and Google to pay content and news companies for using their content in news feeds. Considering this, Facebook claims that they are going to paying UK news organizations for the use of their articles and cooperate with more news organizations so that users can access more information.
To date, the news organizations involved in the partnership include The Guardian, The Economist, Channel 4 News, Daily Mail Group, and others. The roll out in the U.K. seems to be the first in a more global roll out of the feature. Facebook mentioned that they are dealing with the publisher in France and Germany to bring the news tab features to their country. The company also announced that the features will launch in India and Brazil in the future.
