Stories from news outlets, including the Guardian, the Daily Mail and the Financial Times, will appear in a dedicated Facebook feed today.
The UK launch of the Facebook News service is the first outside the US. In addition to already-entered deals with the Guardian, the Economist and hundreds of local websites, Facebook also announced new partnerships with Channel 4 News, Daily Mail Group, DC Thomson, Financial Times, Sky News and Telegraph Media Group on Tuesday.
The deal, which earns millions of leading publishers, will provide a financial boost as they face a bleak economic landscape, in part because such a large portion of the advertising market is now controlled by the social network.
Facebook said the investment was intended to “support the industry in building sustainable business models”.
However, it will also be seen as a strategic play by the company aimed at discouraging wider international regulation of the news media market – by showing that it is prepared to support local publishers without government intervention.
This comes as Australia continues a proposed “news media bargaining code”, which will force technology companies to start negotiations for payment for content or arbitration by third parties if they are unable to reach an agreement.
Meanwhile, the EU copyright establishment is threatening a similar scenario in Europe. Last week, Google reached an agreement to pay news publishers for online content in France, the first similar transaction on the continent.
Facebook said the agreement in the UK, where EU copyright does not apply, ‘was the beginning of a series of international investments in news’ that’ put original journalism in front of new audiences, as well as to advertise publicists more and enrollment opportunities to build sustainable businesses for the future ”.
Contracted news editors – working for the news agent Upday, but under the supervision of the Facebook board of trustees – will select stories of the day, while other stories are algorithmically selected according to the interest of the user.
Facebook said the product will feature composite news stories covering the most important coverage of the day’s stories, and provide an example of a collection of coronavirus-related stories that coincide with the launch.
While some publishers have signed seven-digit deals, others are not paid in advance and will rely on referral traffic or views of ads on Facebook’s Instant Articles format.
In addition to the regulatory concerns, Facebook will also hope that the news can provide a separate feed to strengthen its reputation as a responsible platform in an era of unreliable sources.
It can also hope that by giving news its own stream, it can eventually separate many controversial stories from the more enjoyable content for pets and families, which is still the most powerful attraction for most users – although a post by Jesper Doub, Director of News Partnerships in Europe, said that ‘news articles shared by people and pages will continue to appear in News Feed [Facebook’s main feed], just like today. ”
Of the UK news publishers, News UK – which publishes the Times, the Sunday Times and the Sun – is the most important position. It already has an agreement with Apple News.