What you need to know
- Facebook has announced changes to the way it shows news.
- It is going to prioritize original reporting and stories with transparent authorship.
- The changes will only apply to news content.
Facebook has today announced changes to the way it shows news on user feeds, stating that going forward it will prioritize original reporting and stories with transparent authorship going forward.
In a new blog post the company stated:
Today, we're updating the way news stories are ranked in News Feed to prioritize original reporting and stories with transparent authorship. These signals are based on user research and were built with feedback from news publishers and academic experts. They will only apply to news content.
Facebook says that news is important in informing people around the world and that it wants to ensure that it is prioritized on Facebook. Facebook says:
We will now prioritize articles in News Feed that we identify as original reporting on a developing story or topic. We do this by looking at groups of articles on a particular story topic and identifying the ones most often cited as the original source.
Facebook will start by doing this with English language stories, before being expanded to other languages in the future. Facebook says that seeing stories shared by friends you follow won't change, but when multiple stories on the same topic are shared by publishers, Facebook will boost the original story more, working with publishers and academics to refine the process.
Transparent authorship
Facebook has also said it will demote content "that does not have transparent information about the publisher's editorial staff":
We will review news articles for bylines or a staff page on the publisher's website that lists the first and last names of reporters or other editorial staff. We've found that publishers who do not include this information often lack credibility to readers and produce content with clickbait or ad farms, all content people tell us they don't want to see on Facebook.
Facebook says that as a result of these changes original news may see "an increase in distribution" as a result of these changes. You can read the full announcement here.
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