Social media behemoth Facebook has announced its second major update for News Feed to make sure the news people see, while less overall, is high quality.
This week, Facebook announced that the platform will launch a small test in the US focused on prioritising news from publishers that users find trustworthy.
Facebook is also exploring ways to support local news and other news that users find informative. The company will look to expand these efforts globally as information is gathered from the tests.
In 2018, Facebook said it will prioritise news from publications that the community rates as trustworthy, news that people find informative, and news that is relevant to people’s local community.
“There’s too much sensationalism, misinformation and polarisation in the world today,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a post.
“Social media enables people to spread information faster than ever before, and if we don’t specifically tackle these problems, then we end up amplifying them.”
“That’s why it’s important that News Feed promotes high-quality news that helps build a sense of common ground.”
Facebook’s latest move comes just over a week after Zuckerberg revealed the platform will begin prioritising content from users’ families, friends and groups over brands and media companies, which WPP boss Sir Martin Sorrell said was “the right thing to do”.
