Nuked The launch will include a dedicated local news section among other topics, including a George floyd-specific section as of Tuesday. It was first tested starting last October, and Facebook said at the time it would be paying participating publishers.
The company is hiring a human team and vetting sources to create a new effort called the news page index. The team is transparent about the following guidelines and will make curatorial choices independently, not at the direction of Facebook, publishers or advertisers.
Facebook says to qualify as one of its partner publishers, those publishers need to have a big enough audience and also pass the company’s integrity standards. The FAQ does not make clear where the line between objectionable and passable content is.
Facebook will try to make a larger focus within the company. Any page is capable of publishing news articles and having those articles promoted by the news feed. A majority of which are conservative pages that belong to FOX News and other right-wing organizations.
Facebook’s relationship with the news business is deeply complicated and strained by a number of high-profile controversies over the years. Ceo Mark Zuckerberg sees his platform as a bastion for online free speech.
Facebook is trying to make local news a pillar of its new section. The company says it’s partnered with thousands of local news outlets for the section.
The latest in a number of failed attempts to try to partner with the journalism industry. Its Google amp competitor Instant articles and its big push for original video resulted in mass layoffs at digital media companies.
