Six months after the feature was introduced to users in the US, Facebook has rolled out the News tab in the UK. This could cue the beginning of the platform's involvement with the international news market.
Facebook News Is No Longer Exclusive to the US
As promised by Facebook in a November 2020 announcement, the UK has become the first country outside of the US to get the Facebook News tab in the mobile app.
If you now have access to Facebook News, it's important to note that the feature is not available on computer browsers, only in the Facebook app for iOS and Android.
What Is Facebook News?
Facebook News is an in-app tab for what the social network calls "a more personalized news experience." It allows users to explore a wider range of their news interests, showcasing stories from over 200 sources and pages.
Engadget reports that Facebook is paying UK news organizations to license articles. Confirmed partnered national news outlets include Channel 4 News, the Daily Mail Group, and Sky News.
Some local news outlets like Archant, Iliffe, and JPI Media are getting in on the action as well. If you're more into lifestyle-centered news, you'll be delighted to learn that Cosmopolitan, Glamour, and Vogue are also on the list of partners.
How Does Facebook News Choose Stories for Me?
Even if you don't like or follow a publication on Facebook, its articles may still show up in the News tab if the app believes the topic is relevant to you.
Facebook, in collaboration with another news service called Upday, curates the News Feed for you based on "signals" that evaluate whether the article is local to you, what time the article was posted, and your interactions with the publisher (if any).
News content is then organized on the News Feed in the order of how likely you are to care about that topic. The Facebook team considers prevalence, impact, interest, and diversity when selecting stories for you.
It's worth mentioning, however, Facebook's messy history with news. According to Quartz, Facebook once offered a short list of trending stories.
Facebook initially had a dedicated editorial team, but then suddenly fired them all in favor of an algorithmic approach. After the change, those algorithms immediately posted fake news, prompting Facebook to remove the feature entirely in 2018.
Is Facebook News Trustworthy?
Misinformation has always been a very real danger on the internet, but things may be worse now than ever before.
We hope that Facebook News is a step in the right direction: a way for Facebook to monitor the news shared on the app.
After all, the only kind of news that should populate any social media platform is that of the authentic kind. Or facts rather than fiction, to put it another way.