Breaking news coming to Facebook

If you think about news and Facebook, you tend to think about fake news and Mark Zuckerberg’s social network had a huge hand to play in the splintering of Western Culture back in 2016. Understandably, Facebook wants to end this association, and it is trying to build a connection with another with another type of news. Facebook doesn’t want to be the social network of fake news; it wants to be the social network of breaking news.

The “breaking news” section was announced at the recent Code Media event by the head of Facebook’s news partnership program, Campbell Brown. The big news from the event is that the “breaking news” section won’t be a part of Facebook articles but instead will be found on the Facebook Watch tab.
Brown also said that the “breaking news” section would center on the importance and relevance of local content; in other words, the content you’ll likely see on your Facebook Watch breaking news section will be different from what somebody living elsewhere will see. This adds to a recent change in the News Feed that gave priority to local content. From the announcement:

“People tell us they come to Facebook to connect with friends. They also say they want to see news about what’s happening in the world and their local community. This month, we’ve announced changes to prioritize posts from friends and high-quality news sources. Today, we’re updating News Feed to also prioritize local news so that you can see topics that have a direct impact on you and your community and discover what’s happening in your local area.”

What do you think of Facebook breaking news? Is it about time, or should they leave the news to journalists who understand the dynamics of reporting world events better than Facebook ever will? Let us know in the comments below