SAN FRANCISCO, US: Facebook on Tuesday confirmed plans for a News Tab that will be edited by seasoned journalists, in a departure from its longstanding practice of letting algorithms dictate a user’s experience.
A human team will select relevant, reliable breaking and top news stories.
Other sections of the tab will rely on algorithms to figure out a user’s interests based on “signals” such as pages followed, interactions with online news or subscriptions to publications.
“Our goal with the News Tab is to provide a personalized, highly relevant experience for people,” Facebook head of news partnerships Campbell Brown told AFP.
“For the Top News section of the tab we’re pulling together a small team of journalists to ensure we’re highlighting the right stories.”
However the majority of stories people see will be determined by software, according to Brown.
The tab would be separate from the trademark news feed at Facebook that displays updates and content from people’s friends.
Facebook Watch already allows users to peruse news shows funded by the social network and other on-demand online content.
California-based Facebook has launched an array of initiatives to support or bolster journalism in recent years as social media has been under intense pressure to avoid becoming a tool to spread misinformation.
“Working with news industry to get Facebook’s News Tab right is our goal and focus this year,” Brown said earlier this month in a tweet.
“Still early days but we are getting tremendous partner feedback on the product. I believe we can provide people on Facebook a better news experience.”
Facebook will reportedly pay some publishers to license news content for the tab.
Earlier this year Facebook co-founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said he wanted “to make sure that to the extent that we can, we’re funding as much high-quality journalism as possible.”
Facebook hiring journalists to curate its new News Tab
Facebook hiring journalists to curate its new News Tab
- A human team will select relevant, reliable breaking and top news stories
- Facebook to pay some publishers to license news content for the tab
Journalist working for German media arrested in Turkiye
- A Turkish journalist working for the German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) has been arrested on accusations of “spreading false news” and “insulting the president“
ISTANBUL: A Turkish journalist working for the German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) has been arrested on accusations of “spreading false news” and “insulting the president,” the Istanbul prosecutor’s office has said.
Alican Uludag was arrested in Ankara on Thursday, the office said, on charges stemming from posts on a social media account.
Uludag’s lawyer said the journalist was being targeted for articles written for DW about the repatriation of Turkish citizens affiliated with the Daesh group.
“Alican Uludag was taken into custody (...) because of his article entitled ‘Turkiye Prepares to Repatriate Turkish Citizens Affiliated with the Islamic State’,” said attorney Tora Pekin.
Deutsche Welle said late Thursday that the “charges refer to a message published on X about a year and a half ago” in which Uludag “criticized measures taken by the Turkish government that allegedly led to the release of possible Daesh terrorists” and “accused the government of corruption.”
He was “arrested and taken away in front of his family by about thirty police officers. His home was searched and computer equipment was seized,” it said.
He is due to appear before prosecutors in Istanbul on Friday, the prosecutor’s office said.
According to a representative of Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Erol Onderoglu, “the arrest of Alican Uludag is part of a process of judicial harassment against serious journalists.”
The media watchdog group denounced “the relentless arbitrary practices that are now targeting a journalist who may have disturbed the authorities because of his investigations.”
DW chief Barbara Massing demanded Uludag’s immediate release.
“That a journalist is treated like a common criminal, taken away by some thirty police officers and immediately transferred to Istanbul, constitutes targeted intimidation and shows the extent to which the government is massively repressing press freedom,” she said in a statement.
