Category: News

Today Facebook has updated its news feed algorithm to something way better and more reliable for users.  The news feed algorithm is going to put more emphasis on original reporting and boost content from news websites that provide information on their journalists, increasing transparency.

Facebook has decided to apply this change mostly because many of its users rely on Facebook as a reliable news source for any filed such as Covid-19 now. Moreover, with many local news outlets being forced to close due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the reliance on Facebook for news, especially local updates, is only going to rise.

From now on, Facebook has promised to show its users more original reporting and stories with transparent authorship.

How does the new algorithm work?

Regarding what Facebook has announced on an official announcement:

“When we ask people what kind of news they want to see on Facebook, they continually tell us they want news stories that are credible and informative. Today, we’re updating the way news stories are ranked in News Feed to prioritize original reporting and stories with transparent authorship.”

“We do this by looking at groups of articles on a particular story topic and identifying the ones most often cited as the original source. We’ll start by identifying original reporting in English language news and will do the same for news in other languages in the future.”

Let me make the procedure of this algorithm a little easier for you. There will be variable impacts but take this example form me. Think that several of your friends share reports on the same news topic, and one of them shares the original reportage, Facebook will show you that first.

The second element of the update pays attention to ‘Transparent Authorship.’

Another big change of the algorithm with the new update is Transparent Authorship. According to Facebook itself, they are also starting to demote news content that does not have transparent information about the publisher’s editorial staff.

They will review news articles for bylines or a staff page on the publisher’s website that lists the first and last names of reporters or other editorial staff. They’ve found that publishers who do not include this information often lack credibility to readers and produce content with clickbait or ad farms, all content people tell us they don’t want to see on Facebook.

Overall, we all surely love the idea of the new algorithm change, and I guess that might help Facebook gain the trust and credibility it has lost in the past few days due to controversies.

As you surely have heard by now, many huge companies and big advertisers are boycotting Facebook for various reasons, such as allowing misinformation or violent content from politicians such as President Donald Trump.

After Facebook came to know it is losing its best brands and businesses, such as Verizon and Unilever, as the result of the global Facebook ads boycott, CEO Mark Zuckerburg decided to take serious action and do something about the issue.

After all the controversy and user complaints, Mark Zuckerberg has announced a new plan to occasionally do something about content that violates Facebook’s policies. This action is not for 100% of the situation and is applied every now and then.

Zuckerburg, who had previously refused to do anything against Trump’s posts suggesting that mail-in ballots will lead to voter fraud, is now forced to take actions due to the vast complaints and boycotts. 

Mark Zuckerburg announced the decision in a Facebook live stream and then an official Facebook post on Friday. He seemingly attempted to mollify critics of his decision to allow a post from Donald Trump threatening violence against protesters with a new policy that may or may not address similar posts by the president in the future.

Below is the written statement Mark made on his Facebook post:

“The policies we’re implementing today are designed to address the reality of the challenges our country is facing and how they’re showing up across our community.”.

“A handful of times a year, we leave up content that would otherwise violate our policies if the public interest value outweighs the risk of harm,” wrote Zuckerberg. “Often, seeing speech from politicians is in the public interest, and in the same way that news outlets will report what a politician says, we think people should generally be able to see it for themselves on our platforms. We will soon start labeling some of the content we leave up because it is deemed newsworthy, so people can know when this is the case.

As a result, Facebook will begin adding new labels to all posts about voting that will direct users to authoritative information from state and local election. officials. Moreover, violating posts from politicians or other people is still allowed but will be labeled as inappropriate by Facebook, just like Twitter.

It has been several years since Facebook is being used as the number one platform for advertising, and a remarkable percentage of marketers have been using Facebook to market their brands and businesses. The main reason which makes Facebook a great place for marketing is its vast amount of audience and popularity among people all over the world.

But in recent days, Facebook is seen from a totally different view, and many users have changed their view on Facebook, and thousands of people have even stopped using it.

Facebook is confronting a new pressure campaign from advertisers, unlike anything it has ever experienced before. A growing number of big household names have joined a Facebook advertising boycott over its handling of hate speech and misinformation, culminating on Friday with the news that home goods giant Unilever would halt ad spending for at least the remainder of the year on Facebook, as well as Twitter.

With major advertisers like Verizon joining the campaign Thursday and Unilever, Coca-Cola and Honda saying they would pull advertising on Friday, Facebook is now facing a snowball effect of advertisers abandoning the site. 

Meanwhile, as CNBC explains, Facebook has signaled it intends to do things on its own terms. In a more than 1,600-word memo to advertisers obtained by CNBC, the company’s VP of global business solutions, Carolyn Everson, said, “boycotting, in general, is not the way for us to make progress together.” 

“I also really hope by now you know that we do not make policy changes tied to revenue pressure,” Everson said in the memo. “We set our policies based on principles rather than business interests.”  

Facebook’s stock closed down more than 8% Friday. 

What exactly is the #StopHateForProfit campaign and Where things could go from here

As you might have known a bit about the campaign by now, it is a campaign created by users to boycott Facebook, especially its advertising. The Campaign Forces Zuckerberg to Change Facebook Policies.

This boycott is surely getting Facebook to somewhere bad, and the effects of this act are being shown even now.

Since the boycott launched, over 133 advertisers, including high profile brands and companies, have joined the fight, such as Coca-Cola, Unilever, The North Face, Ben & Jerry’s, REI, Patagonia, Hershey’s, Honda, Levi Strauss, Verizon and many more. As a result, Facebook’s stock dropped more than 8%, roughly $50 billion devaluations. 

From my point of view, the campaign is more serious than what Mark Zuckerberg could ever think it to be and if he does not change Facebook’s rules and keep ignoring users’ complaints, soon, there will be not even one well-known brand advertising on Facebook, which is a disaster for the company.

Until Zuckerberg himself decides to change the limits of free expression on his platform, Facebook may simply lose brands until only those that don’t object to the company’s conductor who cannot survive without the platform’s reach are left, Martin said.