Facebook Will Prioritize Local Stories In Your News Feed (engadget.com) 64
Facebook announced today that it will begin prioritizing local news, bumping it up higher in your feed if you follow a local publisher's Page or if a friend shares a locally-published story. "We are prioritizing local news as part of our emphasis on high-quality news, and with today's update, stories from local news publishers may appear higher in News Feed for followers in publishers' geographic areas," Facebook said in the announcement. Engadget reports: Facebook, which recently announced it would be shifting its News Feed focus away from news and more towards friends' posts, says the local news prioritization will kick off in the U.S., but it plans to expand it to other countries this year. "These efforts to prioritize quality news in News Feed, including this local initiative, are a direct result of the ongoing collaboration with partners," said Facebook. "Our goal is to show more news that connects people to their local communities, and we look forward to improving and expanding these efforts this year."
Dump Zuck (Score:1)
I've been gone for years, and it has had NO material negative impact on my professional or personal life. Who wants to give these Orwellian creepers all your info? Later, Zuck!
Now that's innovation! (Score:1)
How many focus groups, agile stand ups, and continuous integration cycles did this new feature have to go through?
Wat? (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
want to borrow a few of my tinfoil hat friends?
I also have some anti vaxers if you really want to read outlandish stuff...
I know I should just dump them, but it's like a perpetual slow motion train wreck.
Re: (Score:3)
There's a guy I know a little bit -friend of a friend of a friend- who is an anti-vaxxer and he and his wife go to extreme lengths to not vaccinate their kids.
Lately, he's been complaining about the fact that he's got shingles and they're really painful. Karma is a bitch, but I fear for his kids, who are decent people. He's also a big Trump supporter and talks about taking that powder stuff you buy on InfoWars that's made of gland
Re: (Score:2)
I have 3 FB friends I went to HS with who are strongly anti-vaxx. Also strong Trump supporters as far gone as believing InfoWars. I also have an anti-vaxx cousin who's much more liberal, but no smarter. It's a crusade for idiots and FB lets them collaborate. I usually link to John Oliver [youtube.com] and hope for the best.
Re: (Score:2)
I bait them with facts when I'm bored. Otherwise I just ignore them.
Why won't Facebook let us set our OWN priorities? (Score:2)
It's because Facebook's goals are NOT our goals.
I hate to give it away so soon, but I know most of today's Slashdot readers have rather limited attention spans. I'll say a bit more, but mostly I feel like I'm wasting my time. To a degree I might even blame Slashdot, but I think Facebook is the leader in wasting time by chewing it to pieces, and Slashdot is merely contaminated by the trend.
Remember that the "value" of Facebook is primarily linked to how much time the "members" of Facebook spend on the websit
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah just wait until you see those big Hillary or Trudeau supporters, who believe things that are pumped out of sites like "natural news" and so on. The anti-vaxxer thing isn't a "right only" issue, there's plenty of very rich, successful and supposedly highly educated people on the left who are anti-vaxxers. Hell the entire sham industry built off the anti-vaccine movement started with rich idiots, and the doctors they went to who were telling them that vaccines cause autism. Those are actual doctors wh
Re: (Score:2)
want to borrow a few of my tinfoil hat friends? I also have some anti vaxers if you really want to read outlandish stuff...
I know I should just dump them, but it's like a perpetual slow motion train wreck.
And where are you going to get such cheap and disturbing entertainment?
Re: (Score:2)
exactly why I haven't dumped them :-)
I keep them for the lulz.
One of my favorite tropes is to bait them with hard facts as to the prior mortality of the vax of the day.
I actually had one come back with "Herd immunity protects my kids, so I shouldn't have to vax". I pointed out that all it takes is 5% of the people feeling the same way to destroy herd immunity... I was unloaded on about it. /sigh.
Re: (Score:2)
exactly why I haven't dumped them :-) I keep them for the lulz
I had one of them complaining about how the Government shouldn't be in the weather business.
"Why can't the government get it's weather information from The Weather Channel just like the rest of us do?"
Solid freaking gold!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Just go to Breitbart and skip the middleman.
Ha! Breitbart is just a front for the Bilderberg Group. Wke up America! Do I have to start typing in all caps?
Re: (Score:2)
Russia, russia, russia russia russia.....russia. Russia russia russia. Russia: russia russia russia.
That takes me back to a simpler time,,,,,
Badger badger badger badger badger badger badger, snaaa-aaa-ake!
I have blocked ... (Score:4, Funny)
... local news in Facebook.
Facebook is not the fucking place to get the goddam news.
FACEBOOK, YOU ARE NOT MY REAL MOM!!!!
Here's a better idea... (Score:1)
Here's a better idea for Facebook. Stop pretending you care about people by prioritizing stories. You don't. You're doing everything you can to maximize the time people spend on the site, and you really don't care about your users. The news feed has even been a tool for Facebook to conduct experiments, like favoring positive or negative stories to see how they impact users.
Put the news feed in chronological order. I wouldn't have a problem with a Twitter-like "stories you may have missed" section that the u
Bad move in much of the world (Score:3)
Re:Bad move in much of the world (Score:5, Insightful)
Now Facebook is going to push local propaganda over reputable international news coverage. This is not an improvement.
You're blaming Facebook for not showing you what you want to see, and you still use facebook?
Who cares what Facebook pushes? If you care, don't get your news from Facebook. Maybe the improvement will be that more people will realize that Facebook is not a source of news?
Re: (Score:2)
People who get their news from Facebook should not be considered critical thinkers. As such no matter the news presented, they will either 'believe it' or not 'believe it' based upon their pre-existing preferences for what they believe is the truth. Facebook can fuck with the news all they want, it will pretty much change nothing.
It's the opposite affect when government propagandists target slashdot. They are presenting stuff to critical thinkers who will check everything presented to them or ignore it, ba
Re: (Score:3)
This is not how it works. Facebook represents a lot of internet traffic and if you can control that it means power. The idea that critical people don't use Facebook is nonsense. A large part of control is directing attention. That is not directly about believing claims but about believing where to look, what to look at. Of course the same way most people don't look behind headlines it is often enough to point to a claim in order to make people believe in it. Critical thinking is mostly about evaluating what
Re: (Score:2)
Users by nation on social media just got sold back to their dictatorships, theocracies, monarchies, national broadcasters, newspaper publishers.
If a nation, publisher, mil, faith does not pay then their nations captive social media users might get to see international news again.
That is going to be so great for gov, police and mil in nations. Their own citizens using local social media
Yeah right (Score:4, Funny)
Facebook keeps showing me "groups" to join that I have zero interest in, and keeps showing the same ones again and again.
Facebook keeps showing free flights scams
Facebook keeps telling me I want to play certain games, or takes quizzes etc and I don't I won't and they can bugger off
Facebook keeps telling me there are these women in Russia, Ukraine, etc who want to be my friend
So given how completely incompetent Facebook show themselves to be, they think they should now be in between me and my trusted news sources.....
Yeah, I would trust Kellyanne Conway to tell the truth first.
Re: (Score:3)
So given how completely incompetent Facebook show themselves to be, they think they should now be in between me and my trusted news sources.....
If Facebook is in between you and your trusted news sources, it is because you have put Facebook between you and your trusted news sources. Don't go through Facebook to get there, and your problem is solved.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Yeah right (Score:4, Insightful)
Incompetent? You realize their mission is not to keep you happy, right?
Their mission is to keep you (the product) using their service and to manipulate the content you are exposed to in order to maximize exposure for their customers (the advertisers).
They just have to keep it entertaining enough to keep you below the threshold of annoyance below which the cost of leaving exceeds the cost of staying.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Why do people feel the need to make excuses for using Facebook?
How did you keep in contact before Facebook? Try that.
Or use Facebook if you wish. Itâ(TM)s your life, and your soul. But personally, I grow weary of hearing the excuses about keeping in touch. Itâ(TM)s ridiculous.
Re: (Score:2)
You don't get to control how other people, for example, invite you to parties. They'll just check everyone's name on facebook and be done. Be on FB or don't get invited. It's that simple.
The power of intermittent reinforcement (Score:2)
Good comment and you deserve the insightful moderation. However, I think the reality may be worse than you indicated if they are using behaviorist strategies.
If you reward (or punish) a behavior on a continuous basis, then it is quickly extinguished. For example, if you reward a certain behavior every time it happens but then stop the rewards, then the behavior soon stops (is "extinguished" in behaviorist lingo). Alternatively (obviously), if you punish a certain behavior every time it happens, then that be
Stop trying to decide what I should see (Score:3)
I explicitly don't use the News Feed because of crap like this - I just want to see *all* posts from friends and pages I follow in chronological order. Although facebook still fiddles with things a bit, I use a list and follow it to avoid the majority of the News Feed filters and nonsense.
Re: (Score:2)
Thats the real power of pre sorted, pre approved regional news. Topics just never get to be news. The users can interact with a list of news approved by their nations broadcasters, select private sector publishers, their mil, their gov.
Search deranking will hide the rest.
Comment in the wrong way politically and police will do an interview. Blasphemy? Thats going to get an account reported to th
Post everything in chronological order? (Score:3)
Why can't facebook just post everything you subscribe to in chronological order? Why do people accept that Facebook manipulates your timeline? Geez...
Not that I care, I quit fb long ago.
I want trn 4.0 (Score:2)
I want stories I have not yet read. I want them starting with the oldest one I have not yet read, going forward in chronological order.
I want kill patterns. Anything referencing topics I have no interest in, and any of the many screed sites, clickbaity crap sites, glurge sites, etc., that impinge on my awareness. When I mark a pattern as "kill it" I want *NO* stories that mention it, no matter how deeply nested share of a share of a share of a share it is.
I want, when I find a discussion has become tires
Local news (Score:2)
In the USA, itâ(TM)s easy to totally ignore the rest of the world. The news is incredibly local, to the point where youâ(TM)d scarcely believe the rest of the world even existed. Indeed it takes a certain amount of effort to even get news from other states.
This is a bad idea by Facebook. The world does exist, itâ(TM)d be good for people, especially Americans, to hear news from other counties, like France or Australia, Macedonia, or Malawi.
Re: (Score:2)
Isn't this true of European news as well? I don't mean the US centricism, but local news being... local.
Re: Local news (Score:2)
No. In most places, you hear quite a lot about the rest of the world. Youâ(TM)d find everyone in australIa, where I live, would be aware of the joys of Trump, and May, and Angela Merkel. Iâ(TM)d bet a majority of Americans would be unaware of all but trump. Or at least a fair proportion.
I doubt many Americans could name the Aussie prime minister, and we are one of your closest allies. Quite a lot could not even find Australia on a map, but thatâ(TM)s a seperate issue. (Some canâ(TM)t eve
Alternatives to Facebook (Score:1)
Facebook KNOWS i am in caracas... (Score:2)
... because I told them, and yet it insists in showing me events in Montreal, Quebec, Toronto, Piladelphis, Fort-Worth Irving, Madrid and some other places, just because some of my closests friends showed interest. Dear facebook, I( am not about to board a plane to see a concert in Toronto, but if I fly to toronto I'll let you know.
Facebook knows I speak English, spanish and french. Because I told them. With 700 contacts, that should be enough to keep my timeline filled. And yet they insist obn showing shar
Obligatory Oatmeal (Score:2)
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/reaching_people
waiting for backfire... (Score:1)
Yeah, because giving people more localized bubbles is so much better than their regular bubble... mm kay
Right Decision (Score:1)
No, they won't (Score:2)
The implicit assumption in TFS is that EVERYONE is on Facebook. I'm not, and many people here are not. Just stop with the BS Kool-Aid dreams that suggest being plugged into FB is as natural and necessary as having air to breathe, water to drink, and food to eat.
My favorite thing to say about this (Score:1)
1. Delete your Facebook account
2. Bookmark https://www.apnews.com/tag/apf... [apnews.com]
You don't get news from facebook