WASHINGTON: Facebook on Friday began rolling out its dedicated 鈥渘ews tab鈥� with professionally produced content 鈥� the latest move by the social network to promote journalism and shed its reputation as a platform for misinformation.
The tab, being tested with some US users, will be separate from a user鈥檚 normal feed and include articles from partner news organizations.
The mix of stories in Facebook News will be determined by algorithmic 鈥減ersonalization鈥� based on an user鈥檚 preferences and data, and by actual journalists choosing content.
鈥淚鈥檝e been talking to news publishers and journalists for a few years about how we can do more to support high-quality journalism on Facebook,鈥� Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said.
The new tab is 鈥渄edicated to high quality news and personalized to your interests,鈥� he wrote on his Facebook page.
The company said users would have 鈥渕ore control over the stories they see, and the ability to explore a wider range of their news interests, directly within the Facebook app.鈥�
Facebook is expected to pay some of the news organizations that will contribute but has yet to disclose full details.
The social network has partnered with some 200 news organizations including The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Washington Post, CBS News, BuzzFeed, Fox News, the Boston Globe, Bloomberg and Vanity Fair.
Facebook said it would begin an initial test rollout which would 鈥渟howcase local original reporting鈥� from publications in major cities 鈥渂eginning with New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Philadelphia, Houston, Washington DC, Miami, Atlanta and Boston.鈥�
Topic sections will include business, entertainment, health, science and technology, and sports.
The move represents Facebook鈥檚 efforts to reboot its relationship with news organizations, many of which have been critical of the platform for failing to curb the spread of misinformation and for taking much of the online ad revenue.
The plan notably brings together Facebook and Rupert Murdoch鈥檚 News Corp, one of the harshest critics of a digital ecosystem which makes it difficult to find professional content.
Zuckerberg planned to discuss the project with News Corp. CEO Robert Thomson, who last year denounced what he called a 鈥渄ysfunctional鈥� online landscape that made it hard for publishers to thrive.
Northeastern University professor Dan Kennedy said the tab could guide Facebook users in distinguishing between misinformation and professional news.
鈥淟ess savvy news consumers might not be able to tell the difference between exaggerated or fake viral news and real journalism from respected news organizations,鈥� Kennedy said.
鈥淪o this should help a lot.鈥�
But Kennedy said it could be problematic that Facebook may only be paying the richest media organizations, increasing the woes for small, local news outlets.
Ken Paulson, a former USA Today editor who now heads the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University, agreed that the initiative will promote better content.
鈥淢y long-term hope for the news business is that more consumers will recognize the difference between quality and chaos and be willing to pay for the good stuff,鈥� Paulson said.
The news tab 鈥渉as the potential to change the way that consumers find news on the network,鈥� said University of Oregon journalism professor Damian Radcliffe.
鈥淎t the moment, people bump into news in their feed, as opposed to actively seeking it out, as they do on Twitter, Apple News, or dedicated news apps.鈥�
Radcliffe said there are still questions about how users will respond to the content within the news tab and on their main Facebook feeds.
He said the project raises 鈥渋mportant questions here about how transparent the story selection process will be, and what Facebook is effectively saying about news which sits outside of the tab. Does that means it鈥檚 deemed less trustworthy?鈥�