FB’s News Tab: #manipulation

    August 20, 2019

    Thomas Merton:

    Nothing is more empty and more dead, nothing is more insultingly insincere and destructive than the vapid grins on the billboards and the moronic beatitudes in the magazines, which assure us that we are all in bliss right now.

    [AXIOS]

    News Tab

    Facebook executives tell me they’re hiring seasoned journalists to help curate a forthcoming “News Tab” that they hope will change how millions get news.

    • Why it matters: News Tab is an effort by Facebook to restore the sanity and credibility that’s lost in the chaos of our main feeds.
    • Facebook will personalize the News Tab, so it will need a massive amount of content, from the New York Jets to gardening.

    News Tab, a personal passion of CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is also an effort by Facebook to develop a healthier relationship with publishers, many of whom have had their business models destroyed by social platforms.

    • Facebook will pay dozens of publishers to license content for News Tab, and news from many more will be included.
    • The Wall Street Journal reported that the largest partners will be paid millions of dollars a year.
    • News Tab will try to give credit to the outlet that broke a story, rather than an aggregator.

    Campbell Brown, Facebook’s head of news partnerships, said: “Our goal with the News tab is to provide a personalized, highly relevant experience … The majority of stories people will see will appear in the tab via algorithmic selection.”

    • A small team of journalists will pick stories for a Top News section.

    Last year, Facebook killed Trending Topics, populated by contractors, after being accused of bias.

    • “We learned a lot from Trending,” a Facebook executive told me. “This is a completely different product.”

    What’s next: A News Tab test for 200,000 users will begin in October, with a rollout to all U.S. users early next year.

    Profit manipulation:

    ‘The Wall Street Journal reported that the largest partners will be paid millions of dollars a year.’

    Gatekeeper manipulation:

    ‘A small team of journalists will pick stories for a Top News section.’

     

     

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