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Facebook News Tab Launches in the United Kingdom

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Facebook News today launched in the United Kingdom, the first country outside of the U.S. to receive the curated news portal.

facebook-news-tab-uk.jpg

Accessed via a dedicated tab in the mobile Facebook app, the portal features licensed content from hundreds of local and national media organizations including The Guardian, The Economist, The Independent, Channel 4 News, Sky News, Daily Mail Group, and Financial Times, amongst others.

Facebook confirmed to TechCrunch that it will be working with a service called Upday to curate the stories that appear on News:
"The product is a mix of curated, top stories and personalized links chosen by algorithm," a spokesperson said. Upday appears to be a joint collaboration between German publisher Axel Springer and Samsung, which also runs a news service on its phones powered by it.

It is not clear what the financial terms of the deal is between Facebook and Upday, but reportedly, the licensing deals Facebook is cutting with publishers to place their content in News collectively run into the tens of millions of pounds, with the biggest publishers making millions a year from the the agreements. While those figures might pale to what Facebook makes in ad revenues globally — that reaches into the tens of billions of dollars quarterly — they represent significant sums for the beleaguered U.K. media industry.
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Like the U.S. version, Facebook News works by combining editorially curated stories and articles based on what users read, share, and follow on the social network. Users will also get controls that allow them to hide topics or publishers from their feed, according to Facebook.

The company says it is currently negotiating with partners to launch the feature in France and Germany, with Brazil and India also in its sights.

Article Link: Facebook News Tab Launches in the United Kingdom
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2021/01/26/facebook-news-tab-launches-in-the-united-kingdom/
Why does this "feature" make me utterly depressed? I shouldn't care because I don't use Facebook, but their evil tentacles are stretching into yet more parts of our lives where they shouldn't be. Part of me wants to think that this will cut down on the spread of disinformation, but most of me just thinks that Facebook should climb back in its box and go away.
 
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Reactions: BWhaler, york2600, decypher44 and 9 others
Another annoying button across the bottom you won’t be able to remove/turn off. Not to mention the the annoying red dots three times a day you’ll have to dig to find to make them disappear which are just to keep you engaged with their app and make them more money.

All of which will get worse once ad tracking is no longer allowed...
 
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Reactions: VulchR
Sorry - have I missed something? Curated news is by it’s nature, ‘selective’ news, no? Who’s deciding what news is important or how it is presented? News to the highest bidder? Surely Facebook’s track record in this stuff should be enough news for anyone considering opting in to this echo chamber.
 
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I joined FaceBook to keep in touch with my family and friends, who are scattered to the four corners of the planet. If I want news, or videos of dogs and cats dancing together dressed in tutus, I can find that outside of FB. FB took an elegant idea and ruined it with a lack of vision, a lack of focus, a junky GUI, and greed. It is becoming as crass as tabloid newspapers.
 
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Who made those screenshots?

iOS version doesn't have the menu icons at the top. They are at the bottom. And from the font and the bottom nav icons in the 3rd screenshot, it looks like it's Android. But on an iPhone 11 frame?!?!

Yeah, I know, it's totally unrelated to the news itself, but at this point I don't give a sh*t about Facebook, I just keep it to reach some friends and family.
 
Squillace said:
Who made those screenshots?

iOS version doesn't have the menu icons at the top. They are at the bottom. And from the font and the bottom nav icons in the 3rd screenshot, it looks like it's Android. But on an iPhone 11 frame?!?!

Yeah, I know, it's totally unrelated to the news itself, but at this point I don't give a sh*t about Facebook, I just keep it to reach some friends and family.
Click to expand...
I am in the UK and have Facebook - this feature isn't showing up yet. Thankfully.
 
“personalized links chosen by algorithm”. Cool! I’m sure nothing will go wrong with a totally unbiased and well thought out bit of math showing me articles I might like!

ಠ_ಠ
 
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Reactions: waveman
Squillace said:
Who made those screenshots?

iOS version doesn't have the menu icons at the top. They are at the bottom. And from the font and the bottom nav icons in the 3rd screenshot, it looks like it's Android. But on an iPhone 11 frame?!?!

Yeah, I know, it's totally unrelated to the news itself, but at this point I don't give a sh*t about Facebook, I just keep it to reach some friends and family.
Click to expand...
Facebook has different interfaces for different users. It’s really annoying. Same with Instagram. When my wife and I had Facebook. Mine was different than hers on our iPhones. I was able to remove the tabs across the bottom occasionally. She couldn’t. Towards the end I had the marketplace tab I couldn’t remove, she didnt even know the marketplace existed. Come to think of it, that’s probably all curated based on who you are from their data they collected....
 
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