Facebook News is here: will you use it?

The just added Breitbart as a trusted news source and accepted the Daily Caller (white nationalist site) as a 3rd party fact checker. See Popular newsletter for how they are allowing Ben Shapiro to amplify against their own terms of service. All of this points to this being more of a propaganda network than a news feed. Journalism is based on spreading facts, albeit tinged with bias in the use of language and subject selection. Those sites above are telling outright lies to push a alt-right political agenda, and are easily fact checked for complete falsehoods. It is not a benefit to society to spread lies legitimized by wrapping them in a "news feed". While I strongly believe we should allow people with those views to freely express themselves on facebook, this format will only further the ignorance, hate, and partisanship that is already so prevalent in this country, by giving them cover and further amplification.

I understand where FB wins, their algorithm is the gate keeper - they’ll gather marketing data on clicks, what you read, how long - build profiles,package and sell. How do the publishers and newsfeeds win? Surely, they are just reduced to content generators for FB. Researched fact journalism will sit side-by-side with opinion/commentary/propaganda - just look at realclearpolitics to see how that’ll work out. I use Feedly and read a broad range.

Yeesh - interesting timing, Facebook! Given all the negative press they've had recently around spreading misinformation and not regulating political ads this feels kinda icky. I feel like there are tons of credible news sources out there with much clearer incentives and transparent motives for disseminating information objectively and I'd rather go there for news if I'm honest. Facebook makes great products but I wouldn't trust their news to be unbiased, fact checked etc. That said, there are a number of highly intelligent people I know who work at Facebook and whose values I align with. I don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Curious to see what others think.

I will never go to social media to get news or argue with people. So many better ways to catch up on current affairs. Also, it's interesting. I feel as there's a wave of people who are on facebook and who are not (Younger than 21 are really not on it). Outside of US Facebook is still strong but truly losing value here in the US (5 million users deleted or deactivated their account here)

Actually, I think it’s time we all delete Facebook. There’s enough apps out there for us to connect us more meaningfully

Heeeeeeeeell to the NO! Are they insane or just stupid?

of course I will use! who doesn't want to give information about themselves for someone like Cambridge Analytica ?!

Facebook is itself useless. The News feature might just confirm it.

No, thank you! There are better unedited and unbiased news apps/websites. If they have curators, they should try using their skills to weed out false information (fact-check) in political campaigns and ads on Facebook.

If the Chinese government hasn't blocked FB yet, it will now....

The problem I have with this is that it doesn’t put me in control of curating my own preferences for information sources. Why do I need to be at the mercy of what some journalist finds newsworthy? I also don’t trust journalists any more than I trust Zuckerberg. They are people. People with bias and motives that are likely counter to my own. I’ll stick to books and Tweets.

where are you from

If you feed us with Breitbart news, I’ll be leaving Facebook. It was fun while it lasted (without the conspiracy theories).

Editorial independence? That actually means “slave to radical left ideology.”

too little too late who cares what they try to do if you work for zuckerberg you stand up for his pathetic behavior smart or not

Oh what now, Facebook? A Newsroom you say? So 83% for “No Way” as of this post. Shifting the curated (by whom?) and rebranded “Newsroom” over to another tab or real estate of the site won’t change a thing. Is it just me or does everything over there seem increasingly desperate, knee-jerk and just throwing 💩against a literal wall of chaos. The News product (a serious one) should have been sculpted in the long-view and tested out many years ago. It’s like their recent glossy yet tired re-roll of Facebook Groups—an early feature they rolled out in 2005-2006. Oh wow, you mean I can go hang out with everyone in my city who has a basset hound? Misery. Gimme a leash, a poo bag, and an indie podcast any day. The algorithmic news scroll is utterly broken and this won’t fix it. Very soon it will appear as quaintly silly and Victorian as arcade penny nickelodeons. Already happened really. Hands up high for anyone here or anyone you know under say…30 who gets their oh-so-reliable news from Facebook. Exactly. [dead crickets up in here] I think we can all agree that getting our news from the same source that knowingly peddles all of our data to even darker more nefarious actors on the web and beyond, promotes genocide, and uses what amount to blatant redlining tactics to sell real estate ads is probably not really great. Although Zuckerberg testified just this Wednesday that this last practice is not happening now—somehow, I just don’t believe anything this man says. What quantitative/qualitative metrics will Facebook have in place to restore our trust in this particular product? None. They’re literally re-upping their tactic and hedging their bets on hosting the same non-fact-checked sketchy political ads that produced an awesome 2016 for our democracy and others. I hope we’re all really cool with that. No, sadly…the only Newsroom announcement/event I want from Facebook is when they get broken apart. Our lives will go on better than before and we’ll be just fine. News is one area Facebook should just back away from. They’ve proven to suck at it in all their colossal irresponsibility. Pay journalists and support independent, diverse media wherever you can find it.

Oh cool…Breitbart‘s one of their “trusted sources” great work fb.

Still bad for news. Amazon and widgets = Facebook and news. Rent-taking centralized middlemen owning producer relationship w customer. Too much concentrated power.