Facebook is getting its own dedicated news tab. The platform's rocky relationship with news has led to a new partnership in which Facebook will pay major publishers to post in the news tab.
The company's CEO Mark Zuckerberg made the following announcement during his meeting with Congress this week:
Later this week we'll be making a big announcement about the launch of a major initiative around news and journalism. We're working with many to create a new product that will support high-quality journalism.
A post from the Washington Post confirms that a team of humans will determine the top stories in the upcoming tab, while everything else will be chosen by the algorithm, matching stories to users’ interests across topics. The first wave of partner companies includes: WaPo, Wall Street Journal, Business Insider, BuzzFeed News, and a few local news sources.
The company's history with news is a bit of a rollercoaster. News was a major part of the News Feed (as the name suggests) until January 2018, when the company tweaked its algorithm to prioritize news from friends and family. Facebook also has a history of spreading fake news. Also, according to a Pew study, more than 60 percent of Americans believe that the social network has "too much control" over the news people see.
Facebook announced in August that it would launch the new feature before the end of the year. The Wall Street Journal reported at the time that it was offering major publishers up to $3 million to collaborate on the new project.
We don't currently know how these changes will affect the display of content from smaller news sources or whether only large news organizations will be paid.
The new News Feed will be unveiled at a major event in New York this Friday.
