Facebook Is Launching a News Section -- and Will Pay Some Publishers Millions (vox.com) 28
Facebook is planning to launch its news section on Friday, "which will give users a way to scan headlines and read some news stories -- and which will give some publishers, like News Corp, millions of dollars a year for making their journalism available to Facebook," reports Recode. From the report: News Corp CEO Robert Thomson and his boss, News Corp founder Rupert Murdoch, have been insisting that Facebook and other tech platforms should pay them for access to their work. Now Zuckerberg is giving them what they want. It's a remarkable turnaround for Zuckerberg, who as recently as May 2018 said he had no interest in paying publishers for the right to show their stories.
Facebook will roll out its news section Friday as an "alpha" launch, available to a couple hundred thousand U.S. users; it won't get a wider release for a few months. Facebook users who do get it will see a new icon at the bottom of their mobile app alongside other initiatives like its Marketplace classified sales section and its Facebook Watch video section. Users who click on the icon will see headlines for a handful of top stories, selected by Facebook editors -- from partners like the Wall Street Journal (which is owned by News Corp), Business Insider, and BuzzFeed -- and a personalized selection of headlines selected by Facebook's algorithmic software. Clicking on those headlines will send users to the publishers' own sites, where Facebook users can read the entire story for free. And while sites with subscription-based business models will have to let Facebook users see individual articles without paying, they'll be able to keep their paywalls mostly intact: If you click on a Wall Street Journal article via Facebook's news section, you'll be able to read that one story, but if you click on a subsequent WSJ piece, you'll be asked to pay up. Some deals have yet to be finalized, such as deals with the Washington Post and the New York Times, for instance, but sources say Facebook expects to have them by the time the program rolls out widely.
"Facebook will pay some of its news partners as much as $3 million a year for three-year deals but doesn't intend to pay all of the publishers in the program," reports Recode. "Publishers who don't get paid will have to be content having Facebook send them traffic and potential subscribers."
Facebook will roll out its news section Friday as an "alpha" launch, available to a couple hundred thousand U.S. users; it won't get a wider release for a few months. Facebook users who do get it will see a new icon at the bottom of their mobile app alongside other initiatives like its Marketplace classified sales section and its Facebook Watch video section. Users who click on the icon will see headlines for a handful of top stories, selected by Facebook editors -- from partners like the Wall Street Journal (which is owned by News Corp), Business Insider, and BuzzFeed -- and a personalized selection of headlines selected by Facebook's algorithmic software. Clicking on those headlines will send users to the publishers' own sites, where Facebook users can read the entire story for free. And while sites with subscription-based business models will have to let Facebook users see individual articles without paying, they'll be able to keep their paywalls mostly intact: If you click on a Wall Street Journal article via Facebook's news section, you'll be able to read that one story, but if you click on a subsequent WSJ piece, you'll be asked to pay up. Some deals have yet to be finalized, such as deals with the Washington Post and the New York Times, for instance, but sources say Facebook expects to have them by the time the program rolls out widely.
"Facebook will pay some of its news partners as much as $3 million a year for three-year deals but doesn't intend to pay all of the publishers in the program," reports Recode. "Publishers who don't get paid will have to be content having Facebook send them traffic and potential subscribers."
Yet More Surveillance (Score:4, Insightful)
But Facebook isn't a media company! /s (Score:4, Insightful)
Freaking mealy-mouthed hypocrites. They are still trying (and succeeding, apparently) to have it both ways.
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They aren't. A bar that shows a news channel is not a media company either.
Do you really want to start expanding the definition of media company so that only wealthy organizations who can afford all the costs that come with that can purvey news? What happens to Slashdot in that case?
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I don't want that, but it's not a binary choice.
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Link doesn't say what you claim it says:
"Pew Research Center says 45 percent of US adults get at least some of their news from the site."
So if you read one news story on Facebook even if 99% of your news comes from elsewhere you are still in that 45%. Given how people repost news stories on Facebook all the time if you use the site at all it's basically unavoidable.
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But... but... their mission statement says that they'll provide news "through the lens of progress".
That means they'll be awesome guardians of the truth, right?
Wow sure will be looking forward to that - not (Score:5, Funny)
"All the news that we didn't suppress".
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For me, that would be my right rear, where I keep my wallet.
Jesus H. Christ ... (Score:3)
... why in simple hell would anyone want to step INTO Facebook to get their news?
News aggregators abound.
Facebook allows politicians to lie. Why not allow fake news?
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... why in simple hell would anyone want to step INTO Facebook to get their news?
News aggregators abound.
Facebook allows politicians to lie. Why not allow fake news?
It's working smashingly well for Fox news, why not? Why not be filthy rich and fuck everyone over.
I think that was one of the morals in the Aesop fables... " fuck everyone over because hell, we're all gonna die anyway amiright? "
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Fox News and CNN have very little in the way of news. The rest is Jerry Springer shit.
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Fox News and CNN have very little in the way of news. The rest is Jerry Springer shit.
The sensationalized "Jerry Springer shit" is exactly what drives up the clicks. When it comes to actual news, surprisingly, it's not hard to find left-wing stories on Fox and right-wing stories on CNN (has the world gone mad?!). It's just like the second page of a Google search - most people don't bother to look.
Pro-UBI article [foxnews.com] on Fox.
Article critical of Warren's proposals harming the economy [cnn.com] on CNN.
But yeah, when it comes to sensational issues that get either side's blood boiling, there isn't always pari
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Uhm, the cable network Springer worked for was Game Show Network. "The Jerry Springer Show" is on broadcast stations, not a cable news channel.
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The mainstream politicians can't lie on Facebook, they'd be called out by their opposing party. The problem is, the people who aren't famous and foreigners can type whatever they want and bias small pockets of voters, then repeat.
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Why allow fake news when you can make them?
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They probably won't go to Facebook for news, at least not at first. But once they are there to look at the crap people posted they might stick around a bit longer if there are some news stories to read. They might use Facebook to comment on them too, creating even more engagement with the site.
That's what this is about: keeping people on Facebook for longer.
Zuckerberg still has no interest in paying them (Score:2)
Facebook and MySpace to merge? (Score:3)
Uhm... why was News Corp. mentioned in this?
They've owned MySpace for years now. Just look at the MySpace.com [myspace.com] page even if you don't log in. There's a little people search and a lot of celeb news. If News Corp. become the voice of news on Facebook, doesn't that mean these sites are going to look the same?
Why am I not surprised (Score:2)
" will give some publishers, like News Corp, millions of dollars"
I would have bet my liver on that.
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Newscorp ins't news. (Score:2)
It is Entertainment. I am sorry if a bunch of people had fell for the satire which seems like news. But if you check their legal section sites like Fox news states that it is for Entertainment only, and not factual information.