Lane praised Facebook for being one of the first organizations to invest in business sustainability efforts for local newsrooms and said many grant-giving institutions followed suit. She also had some harsh words on Thursday for people who have criticized the tech company that, frankly, has provided plenty of material for criticism.
Facebook in the News
Strange things have been happening in the news lately. Already this year, members of US President Donald Trump's administration have alluded to a 'Bowling Green massacre' and terror attacks in Sweden and Atlanta, Georgia, that never happened.
Does Facebook make it harder for liberals and conservatives to get along? For years, political scientists have wondered whether the social network's news feed selectively serves up ideologically charged news while filtering out content from opposite political camps. Now, a study by Facebook's in-house social scientists finds that this does indeed happen, though the effect is very small.
But even if the algorithm results in a more pleasant experience for Facebook users, they could be losing out on more than just cute cat photos. For example, liberals and conservatives may rarely learn about issues that concern the other side simply because those issues never makes it into their news feeds. Over time, this could cause political polarization, because people are not exposed to topics and ideas from the opposite camp.
By comparing the two groups of stories, researchers found that Facebook's news feed algorithm does indeed create an echo chamber effect. But it is not as powerful as critics have feared. The algorithm made it only 1% less likely for users to be exposed to politically cross-cutting stories, the team reports online today in Science. "The power to expose oneself to perspectives from the other side in social media lies first and foremost with individuals," the team concludes.
Facebook said Wednesday that it is preventing people inside Australia from accessing news stories on its platform. In addition, Facebook users elsewhere will not be able to view or share news stories from Australian outlets. The moves are a response to proposed legislation that would force social media platforms to pay Australian news organizations for links shared on its sites.
"Today we made an incredibly difficult decision to restrict the availability of news on Facebook in Australia," said Campbell Brown, Facebook's vice president of global news partnerships, in a blog post. "What the proposed law introduced in Australia fails to recognize is the fundamental nature of the relationship between our platform and publishers."
News publishers, according to Brown, choose to share stories on Facebook, which allows the outlets to find new readers and subscribers, leading to revenue the news organizations would not have found without the social network.
"Despite key issues such as the COVID-19 pandemic having ongoing effects on all Australians, Facebook has today removed important and credible news and information sources from its Australian platform," David Anderson, the broadcaster's managing director, said in a statement.
When Facebook began disabling pages on Wednesday, it cast a wide net. Local reports indicate that weather forecasting sites, public health agencies and support services, including resources for victims of domestic violence, were blocked along with news.
Under the proposed Australian legislation, tech platforms would have to negotiate with publishers over access to links to news stories. If no deal is reached, the tech companies and media organizations would move to arbitration. In addition, the bill requires platforms to give news outlets notice when algorithms are changed that may affect the visibility and reach of news stories.
The law could pass in the Australian Parliament as soon as this month. For years, Australian-born Murdoch has been lobbying the government to push tech companies to pony up for news articles linked in search results and social media. The agreement Murdoch struck with Google is a three-year deal under which News Corp. will receive "significant payments" from Google for featuring stories from publications based in the U.S., U.K. and Australia
Siva Vaidhyanathan, a professor of media studies at the University of Virginia, said the proposed law is an attempt to reinvigorate flailing news organizations, which have seen substantial amounts of advertising revenue siphoned by tech giants like Facebook and Google.
"It is kind of a stark reminder of the control that they have over what people see and obviously with respect to people who use Facebook as their primary source of news," said Enrique Armijo, a fellow at Yale Law School's Information Society Project.
"This could have serious consequences. And I think any government that's trying to be kind of interventionist in this area is going to be more mindful now that Facebook," he said, "at least has the intention of shutting down news access on the platform entirely."
"Will one side blink or will Facebook just keep going with this petulant attitude until everybody forgets about it and life goes on without Australian news services flowing on Facebook?" he said. "That's not the worst possible outcome. As long as these news organizations remain viable and independent, reporting can remain viable."
Facebook is looking to introduce more news products for its News Tab in coming months, including more curated collections around big events and breaking news, its VP of global news partnerships Campbell Brown told Axios.
Why it matters: The News Tab, a separate destination for news on Facebook from publishers selected by the tech giant, has helped the company address regulatory scrutiny that it doesn't do enough to combat misinformation.
By the numbers: According to new data provided to Axios, Facebook says the News Tab now contributes to over 30% of overall Facebook news link referral traffic for U.S., U.K. and German publishers included in the tab.
What's next: The company has been testing new curation models around big events such as the 9/11 anniversary and the Emmy Awards. It's also experimenting with new types of content for the News Tab, like local alerts, video, quizzes and cluster-based collections, to curated news hubs.
Facebook has been surveying users to help determine the trustworthiness of publications and informativeness of news.How may this affect your Page? If your publication is deemed to be trustworthy or your content is rated to be informative by Facebook users, you may see an increase in the distribution of your content.
Posts that link to articles with such headlines will rank lower in the News Feed.How may this affect your Page? If you depend on such headlines to get a wide reach on Facebook, you will see a fall in your reach. The good news is that once you stop posting such clickbait stories, your Facebook posts will stop being affected by this change.
Facebook aims to reduce the number of hoaxes in News Feed with algorithm tweak.To reduce the number of posts containing misleading or false news, Facebook has announced that the News Feed algorithm will begin to factor in when many people flag a post as false or choose to delete posts.Facebook will reduce the reach of such posts and add a warning on the post (without reviewing or removing the post).
Called "Feeds," the tool is a dedicated tab in the Facebook app that shows all the latest posts from users' friends. The main news feed will now be known as "Home," and will act as more of a "discovery engine" based on people's online habits, the company said.
Facebook, Google and other Big Tech companies are under fierce scrutiny from regulators over the way their platforms have reshaped society. Among the most contentious issues at hand is the use of people's personal data to amplify posts that fuel the most engagement, such as fake news, as well as targeted advertising.
The Facebook algorithm has gone through many updates and improvements over the years. One of the most recent updates focused on assessing the credibility of news articles. The goal of this update was to curb misinformation by promoting reliable and high-quality news sources.
In October 2022, we received reader mail that asked if copying and pasting text from a Facebook post could help to show more content from friends and also remove ads. The copy-and-paste posts, which we refer to as "copypasta," claimed that posting the text on Facebook would "upgrade the system" and help "to regain friends in your news feed and get rid of ads." However, this was a hoax.
To regain friends in your news feed and get rid of ads - Hold your finger anywhere in this post and click "copy." Go to your page where it says "What's on your mind?" Tap your finger anywhere in the blank field. Click paste. This upgrades the system. Hello new and old friends!
In the past, we noticed that some users had insisted in their comments that the supposed trick "worked," even though it's a hoax. They claimed that they started to see more posts from friends whom they hadn't engaged with in some time. However, again, copying and pasting some text one time isn't going to "upgrade" Facebook's "system," nor is it going to help users "to regain friends in your news feed and get rid of ads."
Facebook's Feed, formerly known as the News Feed, is a web feed feature for the social network. The feed is the primary system through which users are exposed to content posted on the network. Feed highlights information that includes profile changes, upcoming events, and birthdays, among other updates. Using a proprietary method, Facebook selects a handful of updates to show users every time they visit their feed, out of an average of 2,000 updates they can potentially receive. Over two billion people use Facebook every month, making the network's Feed the most viewed and most influential aspect of the news industry.[1] The feature, introduced in 2006, was renamed "Feed" in 2022. 2ff7e9595c
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