|
Facebook launches a news section and will pay publishers
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Over the course of its 15 year history, Facebook has variously ignored news organizations while eating their advertising revenue, courted them for video projects it subsequently abandoned, and then largely cut their stories out of its newsfeeds.Now it plans to pay them for news headlines - reportedly millions of dollars in some cases. Enter the "News Tab," a new section in the Facebook mobile app that will display headlines - and nothing else - from the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, BuzzFeed News, Business Insider, NBC, USA Today and the Los Angeles Times, among others. Local stories from several of the largest US cities will also make the grade; headlines from smaller towns are on their way, Facebook says. Tapping on those headlines will take you directly to publisher websites or apps, if you have any installed. Which is more or less what publishers have been requesting from Facebook for years. It’s potentially a big step for a platform that has long struggled with both stamping out misinformation and making nice with struggling purveyors of news. Though media watchers remain skeptical that Facebook is really committed to helping sustain the news industry. Facebook declined to say who is getting paid and how much, saying only that it will be paying "a range of publishers for access to all of their content." Just last year, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he wasn’t sure it "makes sense" to pay news outlets for their material. But now, as Zuckerberg told The News Agency that Dare Not be Named in an interview, "there’s an opportunity to set up new long term, stable financial relationships with publishers." News executives have long been unhappy about the extent to which digital giants like Facebook make use of their stories - mostly by displaying headlines and short summaries when users post news links. A bipartisan bill introduced in Congress this year would grant an antitrust exemption to news companies, letting them band together to negotiate payments from the big tech platforms. "It’s a good direction that they’re willing for the first time to value and pay for news content," said David Chavern, head of the News Media Alliance, a publisher trade group. "The trouble is that most publishers aren’t included." Related: Facebook: 2019-10-24 Sex Offenders Sue Georgia Sheriff for Placing 'No Trick-or-Treat' Signs on Their Property Facebook: 2019-10-24 Libya's Coast Guard intercepts 150 illegal immigrants off the Libyan coast Facebook: 2019-10-23 Giffords Begins Massive Push To Back Anti-Gun Candidates In 2020 Related: Mark Zuckerberg: 2019-09-21 It's Time To Rein In Big Tech Mark Zuckerberg: 2019-07-26 Israeli embassy in Finland subjected to relentless anti-Semitic attacks Mark Zuckerberg: 2018-12-06 Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou’s arrest may prompt China to retaliate, 'take hostages,' expert says Posted by: Fred 2019-10-26 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=553669 |