Popular social media platform Facebook is looking to change things up this time. The company, which insists it doesn't want to get into the media business, is planning to launch a new news tab in the coming months. Part of that effort, it seems, is establishing guidelines, enforced by certain people, for the articles that will be hosted in its upcoming section.
This essentially means that Facebook employees will study and present on the social networkthe news that users . And judging by the fact that 43% of Americans got their news from Facebook last year, that's a very large number.
Facebook will not allow posts containing profanity on its platform, which seems rather silly. However, the company will allow stories that address the platform's ethical and technical failings to appear in the news section.
In other words, Facebook explicitly tells its news editors not to censor articles that might say bad things about their employer.
Other interesting tidbitscome from an internal Facebook memo, which states that its editors will wait until at least two “authoritative media outlets” report a breaking news story that hasn’t yet been substantiated before including the story in the new Section. Facebook’s news editors will also avoid news articles “crafted to provoke, divide, and direct.”
The information also notes that Facebook's news editors will prioritize both local news sources and "articles that come from official sources rather than anonymous ones.".
How this new Facebook venture will play out is hard to predict. However, the more control it exerts over its platform, the more trustworthy it becomes. It remains to be seen how this all plays out.
