5 ms·

Facebook’s retreat from the news business

111 points by blatherard 8y ago

JumpCrisscross 8y ago
Good. Everything wrong with non-subscription clickbait-driven news is amplified on Facebook. Very little is gained for that cost.
sudosushi 8y ago
Google Cached version for all the EU members whom get the GDPR warning, with no option to opt out of anything. https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:qvSt11OAA0QJ:https://slate.com/technology/2018/06/facebooks-retreat-from-the-news-has-painful-for-publishers-including-slate.html https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:qvSt11...
- pmontra 8y ago
  Thanks! All I was seeing is: > Slate’s Use of Your Data > By clicking “Agree,” you consent to Slate’s Terms of Service and Privacy Policy and the use of technologies such as cookies by Slate and our partners to deliver relevant advertising on our site, in emails and across the Internet, to personalize content and perform site analytics. Please see our Privacy Policy for more information about our use of data, your rights, and how to withdraw consent. > Agree Obviously I didn't agree even if I have all the extensions to block and delete ads, cookies and the like. Kind of Slate's retreat from the news business.
coderdude 8y ago
Interesting. Maybe Facebook didn't like being dragged through the mud by news organizations. Maybe Facebook is hurting them back by asphyxiating them. I can't say I'd feel very bad about that if that were the case.
- oscarthegrouch 8y ago
  If you read the article, this trend began before the recent "Facebook is the devil" trend in the news. Perhaps instead it's the other way around? Perhaps the news organizations are trying to hurt FB for a drop in their readership? Either way, the news and social media spaces do not have a healthy relationship.
rossdavidh 8y ago
I wonder, given the grilling that Zuckerberg got the last year, if Google would rather avoid replacing them in the near-monopoly position of news gatekeeper. On the other hand, Twitter seems to be fine with it, since the Facebook pivot away from news might be what it is using to reverse its decline.
- 0xfaded 8y ago
  Would someone with knowledge care to comment what % of traffic disappears at each update. The last update pushed me over the edge to bing news of all things. Worse aggregation with a UI only as bad as gnews minus two major updates.
  - robertAngst 8y ago
    Curious too. Are there any stats on this? Btw, quit fb and havent needed to look back. replaced it with... HN, reddit, crappy twitter, instagram, and snapchat.
    - Haydos585x2 8y ago
      Instead of crappy twitter you could use Mastodon. It feels like Twitter in the early days. Of course, if you used "crappy twitter" as a nickname for Mastodon I'm not going to disagree with you.
Endama 8y ago
I don't know if this is necessarily the right thing to do, I understand that Facebook (and others) were really effectively weaponized by malicious foreign actors, but conceding by not participating in journalism feels wrong to me. This is indicative of a larger question that I think we, as the tech industry, need to really ask ourselves: to what degree are the platforms responsible for fixing the ills of the connections between users. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. are all Western businesses operating at international scales. Is it "right" for them to impose western approaches to journalism, "truth", civic engagement, digital literacy, etc. to the rest of the world? If the answer is yes, we must come to the realization that these platforms cannot be impartial, if the answer is no, we must accept that we, as an industry, are going to complicit in the systematic harm of societies and must accept that as table stakes. Now I don't think this is necessarily a zero-sum situation, Salesforce probably doesn't have the same kind of civic obligations that FB, Twitter, Google have; but the clear lines of engagement in the spectrum of SAAS companies needs to be discussed.
- dvtrn 8y ago
  : to what degree are the platforms responsible for fixing the ills of the connections between users. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. are all Western businesses operating at international scales. Is it "right" for them to impose western approaches to journalism, "truth", civic engagement, digital literacy, etc. to the rest of the world? I'm unsure I understand the juxtaposition here, can you elaborate on the correlations you see between the responsibility of online platforms to 'fix' my friendships and the eagerness you see within those platforms to act and behave as components of the 4th estate? It's possible I've read your post improperly and came away with the wrong impression, can you clarify what you mean? Thanks :)
  - Endama 8y ago
    For example, it could be the case than in a given country, a news article in which the son of a prominent CEO does something socially embarrassing relative to that culture (perhaps he didn't get into a top university and instead attends a community college) which causes enough public outcry that he resigns. Is it right for Twitter, Facebook, etc. to push up comments and reactions, via machine learning algorithms or whatever, that bias more towards western (read: American) values about what is considered social outrage? Conversely, what if ideas about corruption are treated differently in different countries. If it is the case that it is socially expected/accepted to pay officials for certain services, is it right for a western tech company to promote comments/content that show dissent and value western values over the local ones?
robertAngst 8y ago
What if facebook isnt trying to get rid of the media? What if that is actually users being sick of it? Mind you facebook has driven me to the point I stopped using it entirely.
- rock_hard 8y ago
  You mean the media or Facebook? If Facebook, then why do they keep growing their user base quarter over quarter? Don’t underestimate the bubble you are in and extrapolating that to global scale! Facebook is here to stay for the time being, whether you personally choose to use it or not!
  - apatters 8y ago
    You're cherrypicking one metric with a nonchalance that Facebook's investors surely do not share. FB is experiencing its slowest global user growth ever, and US users are declining. Popular/media criticism and boycotting actually appear to be making an impact in the west, along with an inevitable generation shift (young'uns just aren't thrilled about sharing a social platform with Mom and Gramps). Having failed at doing news in a way that users liked, it makes sense for FB to pull out. Most of their new users are in countries with poor education systems or regimes that censor the news. News is an awkward business to be in under those conditions anyway. None of this is surprising at all once you've seen multiple product cycles, markets do in fact matter, no company rules forever, if your product is total crap people will drift away from it, this time is almost never different. Friendster died, Myspace died, etc. FB can go the same way if they mis-execute badly enough (though it could certainly take decades especially in their strongest markets).
    - Haydos585x2 8y ago
      I've really slowed using Facebook because of the amount of misinformation or straight up lies by some acquaintance. Comments on any kind of news source are pretty bad as well. So many lies just made the platform unusable for me.
      - 8y ago
binnesjohn 8y ago
Oh please, facebook is a dying platform. Even grannies know that
ThJ 8y ago
I can't read that article because I have booked all cookies from slate.com, and it's using a cookie to store that I have consented to being tracked with cookies... I do not consent to being tracked, but I do want to read the article.

111 points by blatherard 8y ago

Good. Everything wrong with non-subscription clickbait-driven news is amplified on Facebook. Very little is gained for that cost.

sudosushi 8y ago

Google Cached version for all the EU members whom get the GDPR warning, with no option to opt out of anything. https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:qvSt11OAA0QJ:https://slate.com/technology/2018/06/facebooks-retreat-from-the-news-has-painful-for-publishers-including-slate.html https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:qvSt11...

pmontra 8y ago
Thanks! All I was seeing is: > Slate’s Use of Your Data > By clicking “Agree,” you consent to Slate’s Terms of Service and Privacy Policy and the use of technologies such as cookies by Slate and our partners to deliver relevant advertising on our site, in emails and across the Internet, to personalize content and perform site analytics. Please see our Privacy Policy for more information about our use of data, your rights, and how to withdraw consent. > Agree Obviously I didn't agree even if I have all the extensions to block and delete ads, cookies and the like. Kind of Slate's retreat from the news business.

coderdude 8y ago

Interesting. Maybe Facebook didn't like being dragged through the mud by news organizations. Maybe Facebook is hurting them back by asphyxiating them. I can't say I'd feel very bad about that if that were the case.

oscarthegrouch 8y ago
If you read the article, this trend began before the recent "Facebook is the devil" trend in the news. Perhaps instead it's the other way around? Perhaps the news organizations are trying to hurt FB for a drop in their readership? Either way, the news and social media spaces do not have a healthy relationship.

rossdavidh 8y ago

I wonder, given the grilling that Zuckerberg got the last year, if Google would rather avoid replacing them in the near-monopoly position of news gatekeeper. On the other hand, Twitter seems to be fine with it, since the Facebook pivot away from news might be what it is using to reverse its decline.

0xfaded 8y ago
Would someone with knowledge care to comment what % of traffic disappears at each update. The last update pushed me over the edge to bing news of all things. Worse aggregation with a UI only as bad as gnews minus two major updates.
- robertAngst 8y ago
  Curious too. Are there any stats on this? Btw, quit fb and havent needed to look back. replaced it with... HN, reddit, crappy twitter, instagram, and snapchat.
  - Haydos585x2 8y ago
    Instead of crappy twitter you could use Mastodon. It feels like Twitter in the early days. Of course, if you used "crappy twitter" as a nickname for Mastodon I'm not going to disagree with you.

Endama 8y ago

I don't know if this is necessarily the right thing to do, I understand that Facebook (and others) were really effectively weaponized by malicious foreign actors, but conceding by not participating in journalism feels wrong to me. This is indicative of a larger question that I think we, as the tech industry, need to really ask ourselves: to what degree are the platforms responsible for fixing the ills of the connections between users. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. are all Western businesses operating at international scales. Is it "right" for them to impose western approaches to journalism, "truth", civic engagement, digital literacy, etc. to the rest of the world? If the answer is yes, we must come to the realization that these platforms cannot be impartial, if the answer is no, we must accept that we, as an industry, are going to complicit in the systematic harm of societies and must accept that as table stakes. Now I don't think this is necessarily a zero-sum situation, Salesforce probably doesn't have the same kind of civic obligations that FB, Twitter, Google have; but the clear lines of engagement in the spectrum of SAAS companies needs to be discussed.

dvtrn 8y ago
: to what degree are the platforms responsible for fixing the ills of the connections between users. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. are all Western businesses operating at international scales. Is it "right" for them to impose western approaches to journalism, "truth", civic engagement, digital literacy, etc. to the rest of the world? I'm unsure I understand the juxtaposition here, can you elaborate on the correlations you see between the responsibility of online platforms to 'fix' my friendships and the eagerness you see within those platforms to act and behave as components of the 4th estate? It's possible I've read your post improperly and came away with the wrong impression, can you clarify what you mean? Thanks :)
- Endama 8y ago
  For example, it could be the case than in a given country, a news article in which the son of a prominent CEO does something socially embarrassing relative to that culture (perhaps he didn't get into a top university and instead attends a community college) which causes enough public outcry that he resigns. Is it right for Twitter, Facebook, etc. to push up comments and reactions, via machine learning algorithms or whatever, that bias more towards western (read: American) values about what is considered social outrage? Conversely, what if ideas about corruption are treated differently in different countries. If it is the case that it is socially expected/accepted to pay officials for certain services, is it right for a western tech company to promote comments/content that show dissent and value western values over the local ones?

robertAngst 8y ago

What if facebook isnt trying to get rid of the media? What if that is actually users being sick of it? Mind you facebook has driven me to the point I stopped using it entirely.

rock_hard 8y ago
You mean the media or Facebook? If Facebook, then why do they keep growing their user base quarter over quarter? Don’t underestimate the bubble you are in and extrapolating that to global scale! Facebook is here to stay for the time being, whether you personally choose to use it or not!
- apatters 8y ago
  You're cherrypicking one metric with a nonchalance that Facebook's investors surely do not share. FB is experiencing its slowest global user growth ever, and US users are declining. Popular/media criticism and boycotting actually appear to be making an impact in the west, along with an inevitable generation shift (young'uns just aren't thrilled about sharing a social platform with Mom and Gramps). Having failed at doing news in a way that users liked, it makes sense for FB to pull out. Most of their new users are in countries with poor education systems or regimes that censor the news. News is an awkward business to be in under those conditions anyway. None of this is surprising at all once you've seen multiple product cycles, markets do in fact matter, no company rules forever, if your product is total crap people will drift away from it, this time is almost never different. Friendster died, Myspace died, etc. FB can go the same way if they mis-execute badly enough (though it could certainly take decades especially in their strongest markets).
  - Haydos585x2 8y ago
    I've really slowed using Facebook because of the amount of misinformation or straight up lies by some acquaintance. Comments on any kind of news source are pretty bad as well. So many lies just made the platform unusable for me.
    - 8y ago

binnesjohn 8y ago

Oh please, facebook is a dying platform. Even grannies know that

ThJ 8y ago

I can't read that article because I have booked all cookies from slate.com, and it's using a cookie to store that I have consented to being tracked with cookies... I do not consent to being tracked, but I do want to read the article.