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Facebook to Invest $300m in Supporting Local News

myworkhandle 8y ago
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
- zozbot123 8y ago
  Not sure if I got that, did you mean "Do not want." perhaps?
  - myworkhandle 8y ago
    Facebook has already proven to be liars. They are also biased with everything they do. Facebook has clouded the minds of everyone! Get the f off facebook and go live your life! Facebook needs to die in a fire.
claudiulodro 8y ago
Interesting timing, the day after Newspack was announced.[1] I know which one I'm going to support, but it's going to be tough to take on a $300mm commitment with a $3mm commitment. 1. https://en.blog.wordpress.com/2019/01/14/newspack-by-wordpress-com/ https://en.blog.wordpress.com/2019/01/14/newspack-by-wordpre...
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  All the more reason to support Newspack and independent/local journalism over Facebook.
- ijafri 8y ago
  With Google Reader Gone, Facebook and Twitter essentially have taken the place of feed readers. It makes a lot of sense for Facebook, it's not merely a social network anymore. It's acting like a social 'OS' for the users now.
  - zozbot123 8y ago
    Yahoo.com used to be that "social OS" in the 1990s and early 2000s, and look at them now. They even had a Facebook-like feature as part of their service, Yahoo 360.
  - rchaud 8y ago
    Google Reader and RSS has outsize importance in tech and blogging circles, but as someone who was in college in the late-2000s, I count on one hand the number of people who knew what RSS even was. I'd say FB and Twitter killed forums and website comment sections.
- freehunter 8y ago
  Reading about Newspack, I'm wondering what their definition of "small news organization" is... considering after the "development period", they'll start charging sites $1000-$2000 PER MONTH. Again I'm not sure on their definition of "small" but as someone who runs a small news organization and is active in groups involving small news organizations, I know a lot of small news organizations would love to make enough money that $1000/mo for web hosting would be worth it. Neither of the pages they link to in this announcement actually states what makes this worth $1000/mo rather than the $25/mo Wordpress normally charges. In fact I don't see literally anything describing what you get with Newspack at all. >we’re seeing a need for an inexpensive platform Is $1000/mo "inexpensive" compared to their normal price of $25/mo? I'm extremely interested in understanding what this actually is, but I just read 5 articles from various sites and none of them actually say what Wordpress is offering that's worth $1000-$2000 PER MONTH.
lquist 8y ago
Ah yes the bastion of journalistic quality that is local news...wait...what? FB gets a lot of flak for fake news and then decides to invest in local news? Why not in institutions that set the standard for journalism and bring accountability such as Pro Publica?
- dylan604 8y ago
  Would you trust a Pro Publica article "sponsored by" FB? Or NPR programs supported by contributions from FB? That's right up there with 1950s TV programming sponsored by cigarette companies. After all 9 out of 10 doctors...
- porpoisely 8y ago
  Pro Publica was created by billionaire bankers a little more than 10 years ago. They aren't in need of any funding. Also, it's a bit of a stretch to say that pro publica is the standard of journalism or accountability. Pro Publica is an advocacy institution.
  - rhcom2 8y ago
    I think you could call any investigative journalism "advocacy".
  - throwaway5752 8y ago
    You may not intend it, but when you write, "created by billionaire bankers" it doesn't add to the conversation much (specific behavior influenced by that funding would be more useful, if it exists) and is recalls some kind of unpalatable language/imagery used by far right groups - which I'm definitely not accusing you of, to be clear. One thing you may not know is that they publish their full financials, in accordance with the mission statement around transparency. You can see their full 2017 finances here: https://assets.propublica.org/2017-Financial-Statements-for-Pro-Publica-Inc.pdf https://assets.propublica.org/2017-Financial-Statements-for-... (and you can see they are financially conservative, but are very much in need of funding to support their operations). I have no connection to them other than admiration for how they are operated and their mission.
shiftpgdn 8y ago
Know what would actually help local news? Ad revenue share on their pages. So many older people treat Facebook as "the internet" are rarely venture off platform.
- ojbyrne 8y ago
  Maybe we have a different idea of “older” people, but my experience is that older people actually still read newspapers (ie dead trees).
creaghpatr 8y ago
With stipulations, of course.
warent 8y ago
Interestingly the post says nothing about Sinclair which makes me think this is nothing more than a gigantic media partnership and yet another reason to distrust the news.
joshfraser 8y ago
Facebook already has way too much power in their ability to shape reality for billions of people. Now they have even more power as the local news companies will be beholden to their investor.
zoul 8y ago
As someone who has been running a local newspaper for the last four years in a town of about 11 thousand people, getting money or support from Facebook would feel like someone robbing you and then being so kind as to split the money with you. My trust in them is exactly zero. They have practically monopolized news distribution, helped to destroy the business model of an important social service and now they would like to make up for it by giving a fraction of the money back?
- freehunter 8y ago
  I also run a local news outlet, digital-only though and not print. Facebook is both the reason for our success and also the source of our biggest pain. They almost put us out of business within the last year. For how they're helping, it's really hard to get people to care about websites. People as a whole just don't care. They don't want to visit your website. So we publish our stories and share them to Facebook. We get about a 10% click through of people who saw the story, which is better than we'd do without publishing to Facebook. On the other hand, our biggest draw is the event calendar, organizing all of the city and business events into one local calendar. People visit for the events, and then also click on news headlines they find interesting. Up until April 2018, we got this event data from the Facebook events API and linked it all back to Facebook if people wanted more details. A win-win I think. In April 2018, they shut off the events API with zero warning. So these public events from businesses who want people to attend their events, events which are visible by people who are not even logged into Facebook, are now considered private data by Facebook and no longer part of their API. The big draw of aggregating them is that people see a curated list of good events that are actually near them: in a small town, just clicking Discover on Facebook events shows you mostly stuff from the big cities nearby. It takes a few clicks to get to events actually happening in the small town itself. We still have it, but we have to type it all by hand every week, which leaves less time for writing stories, talking to story leads and city officials and customers, selling ads, you know the actual "local news" part of the business. Facebook, if you're reading this and want to help local news: turn the public events API back on. A local band playing at my local brewery is not private information, it is the definition of "things that should be shared".
  - 8y ago
monkeynotes 8y ago
> Last year, we worked to better understand what kind of news people want to see on Facebook. This opening line is just all wrong. News isn't about 'what you want to see', writing news to garner clicks is basically another way of saying 'our news reporting is fundamentally biased'. Real journalism isn't entertainment. But, I get it, real journalism doesn't sell, people don't have time to understand world problems, don't care much about corruption unless it's dramatic, don't care about plain boring facts. Facebook understands that in order to own a market they have to spoon-feed it what it wants. Curate an audience of idle minds and feed them what they measurably want. This play to 'local news' is simply a tool to advance their own agenda, they want to own local news and help you feel that FB is all warm and 'local' to your needs. Your 'local' world-view, sponsored by Facebook. It's kind of sick really.
- jdironman 8y ago
  Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with nor endorse Facebook. I actually deleted mine for 6 months before making a new one to keep in touch with friends. But, I will not knock a company for wanting to maximize profits. They want their users to want to use their platform. If I owned a social media, or any product really, I would want to do everything I can to keep them coming back. I feel like as long as it isn't illegal, and done with best practices (ethically and morally) then that is what a free market is about. Should a competitor arise and do it better then That would be fantastic! Markets thrive through competition and freedom of choice. But as it stands there is not a whole lot of competition state side. I don't agree with a lot that Facebook, or Mark, does. But I have respect for them from strictly a business point of view for staying above water as long as they have. I just wish there was a viable competitor.
  - thanatropism 8y ago
    There are many compelling arguments that Facebook is addictive. I remember feeling physically ill, as if struck by the flu, the first day I quit facebook. (You might argue with Milton Friedman, that the free market should be allowed to provide addictive goods. This may well be true, but there's no D.A.R.E for social media; there are also very few non-social media users you might compare with social media users for reference, as you might for potheads and cokeheads.)
vilijou 8y ago
Great! Though nothing on how the Facebook click-bait business model is at odds with good journalism, which has led to the decline of reputable newspapers and rise of Buzzfeed.
joelrunyon 8y ago
Anyone else not want local news support coming from FB of all places?
yumraj 8y ago
Best win-win outcome IMO would be for Facebook to pay itself this $300M as an incentive to stay completely out of news, local and otherwise.
- everythingisbad 8y ago
  prevent people from posting news articles? you know that facebook doesnt post or promote news itself... right?
fareesh 8y ago
My favourite story involving Facebook and the news is when Facebook's head of news - Campbell Brown (the former CNN anchor), went down to Australia. She was hired after the 2016 election as a go-between for Facebook and news organizations. According to a report in "The Australian" she is quoted to have allegedly said "We will help you revitalise journalism... in a few years the reverse looks like I’ll be holding your hands with your dying business like in a hospice" and "We are not interested in talking to you about your traffic and referrals anymore. That is the old world and there is no going back – Mark wouldn’t agree to this" Then Facebook denied that this happened. So to summarize: - Facebook is accused of not doing enough to combat fake news - Facebook hires Campbell Brown to be a point person to deal with the fake news situation - A newspaper reports that Campbell Brown allegedly tried to push them around - Facebook says this is fake news
legohead 8y ago
Do these execs / decision makers live in some fantasy land where they think this looks and sounds okay? I assume none of the employees were asked about this, as any rational person would tell them "wait a second, I think this is stupid."
gammateam 8y ago
Might as well have been posted by The Onion
CodeSheikh 8y ago
Or Facebook to Invest $300m in Influencing Local News. Facebook newsfeed model inherently works against local news and small guys (unless some certain piece goes viral once in a while). Local news outlet based out of some small locality does not have a huge follower base that gets Facebook's attention. This is just another PR stunt by Facebook.
- IronWolve 8y ago
  Same problem when using google youtube, they push CNN ahead of other news bloggers. CNN is also excluded from being blocked like normal channels. The future of Facebook news is their curated hand picked news.
roseburg 8y ago
The old local news model is dying because it's top heavy and has enormous overhead. Local news isn't dying though, and is as valuable as ever. It's just in the process of completely changing. One person can now do more with 1/1000th the budget of a local Newspaper with the barrier to entry being hard work, good writing skills, social media savvy and a love of the place they are covering. More money to these organizations will just keep them on life support longer. Now if they changed their model 100% that would be a completely different story. The future of journalism will be a lot of small teams (1-4) of writers/journalists/personalities running their own show in their city or state. The financial woes of the old news industry is a symptom. A change is needed.
MrLeftHand 8y ago
A platform that is renowned for sanitising the world around us to fit their agenda, invests in news outlets. Is anyone else seeing the problem here? I am glad I left that platform.
ausbah 8y ago
it's amazing how facebook has become an internet within the internet for stuff like looking at news, company information, etc.
- swasheck 8y ago
  my wife just told me that they're presenting recipes to her for her to save in some other corner of her facebook ... experience. they really are attempting to become an "internet within the Internet." kinda reminiscent of how AOL started.
iicc 8y ago
It's a good idea, but facebook can't be trusted. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/dec/13/they-dont-care-facebook-fact-checking-in-disarray-as-journalists-push-to-cut-ties https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/dec/13/they-dont... >Journalists paid to help fix Facebook’s fake news problem say they have lost trust in the platform >“They’ve essentially used us for crisis PR,” said Brooke Binkowski, former managing editor of Snopes, a factchecking site that has partnered with Facebook for two years. “They’re not taking anything seriously. They are more interested in making themselves look good and passing the buck … They clearly don’t care.”
- swasheck 8y ago
  > It's a good idea, but facebook can't be trusted. In my opinion it seems like the foundations for a Patron/Client relationship. Those typically only really work out for the two parties involved.
mudil 8y ago
I am a publisher of a medical technologies website since 2004. To really help journalism, Facebook and Google need to get out of the surveillance capitalism business. I left this comment before on a different thread. What we have now is monopolized internet. Few entities, like Google and FB, took over the internet and crafted the landscape to their advantage. They monopolized ads revenue, search traffic, and more importantly, they are actively spying on the general public, taking away any possible advantages from publishers. So website for doctors cannot make money by advertising to doctors. Doctors will see Google ads on Candy Crush. The result is a dearth of advertising money for publishers and regulations aimed at destroying any attempt to take over these behemoths. Local news is dead, because Google and Facebook know your location, and they sell it. When was the last time you saw GFPR notice on Facebook or Google? Do you think publishers enjoy having "Please Donate" pop-ups? When was the last time you heard of investment rounds in online publishers, or any publisher? Why do you think Denver Post and USA Today are barely alive? In the olden days we had websites and blog networks being born, Gawker, Weblogs Inc, TechCrunch network, political networks, etc etc. And what do we have now? Central stations with fake news shenanigans and retarded memes. While publishers, including your local newspaper and your favorite websites, are struggling.
luckydata 8y ago
Lion invests $300M in the preservation of gazelles.
telaport 8y ago
lol sure. Supporting local news with Russian propaganda
drugme 8y ago
Facebook's idea of news is "anything that keeps you more addicted to our app, and/or more easily targetable for ads".
maxhedrome 8y ago
“We noticed that others were using our platform for psychological manipulation, we can no longer continue to allow this unless it’s Facebook approved messaging” -Mark Zuckerfuck
rblion 8y ago
The more they force themselves into the people's lives, the more people will be pushed away. Just watch.

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

zozbot123 8y ago
Not sure if I got that, did you mean "Do not want." perhaps?
- myworkhandle 8y ago
  Facebook has already proven to be liars. They are also biased with everything they do. Facebook has clouded the minds of everyone! Get the f off facebook and go live your life! Facebook needs to die in a fire.

Interesting timing, the day after Newspack was announced.[1] I know which one I'm going to support, but it's going to be tough to take on a $300mm commitment with a $3mm commitment. 1. https://en.blog.wordpress.com/2019/01/14/newspack-by-wordpress-com/ https://en.blog.wordpress.com/2019/01/14/newspack-by-wordpre...

toomuchtodo 8y ago
All the more reason to support Newspack and independent/local journalism over Facebook.
ijafri 8y ago
With Google Reader Gone, Facebook and Twitter essentially have taken the place of feed readers. It makes a lot of sense for Facebook, it's not merely a social network anymore. It's acting like a social 'OS' for the users now.
- zozbot123 8y ago
  Yahoo.com used to be that "social OS" in the 1990s and early 2000s, and look at them now. They even had a Facebook-like feature as part of their service, Yahoo 360.
- rchaud 8y ago
  Google Reader and RSS has outsize importance in tech and blogging circles, but as someone who was in college in the late-2000s, I count on one hand the number of people who knew what RSS even was. I'd say FB and Twitter killed forums and website comment sections.
freehunter 8y ago
Reading about Newspack, I'm wondering what their definition of "small news organization" is... considering after the "development period", they'll start charging sites $1000-$2000 PER MONTH. Again I'm not sure on their definition of "small" but as someone who runs a small news organization and is active in groups involving small news organizations, I know a lot of small news organizations would love to make enough money that $1000/mo for web hosting would be worth it. Neither of the pages they link to in this announcement actually states what makes this worth $1000/mo rather than the $25/mo Wordpress normally charges. In fact I don't see literally anything describing what you get with Newspack at all. >we’re seeing a need for an inexpensive platform Is $1000/mo "inexpensive" compared to their normal price of $25/mo? I'm extremely interested in understanding what this actually is, but I just read 5 articles from various sites and none of them actually say what Wordpress is offering that's worth $1000-$2000 PER MONTH.

lquist 8y ago

Ah yes the bastion of journalistic quality that is local news...wait...what? FB gets a lot of flak for fake news and then decides to invest in local news? Why not in institutions that set the standard for journalism and bring accountability such as Pro Publica?

dylan604 8y ago
Would you trust a Pro Publica article "sponsored by" FB? Or NPR programs supported by contributions from FB? That's right up there with 1950s TV programming sponsored by cigarette companies. After all 9 out of 10 doctors...
porpoisely 8y ago
Pro Publica was created by billionaire bankers a little more than 10 years ago. They aren't in need of any funding. Also, it's a bit of a stretch to say that pro publica is the standard of journalism or accountability. Pro Publica is an advocacy institution.
- rhcom2 8y ago
  I think you could call any investigative journalism "advocacy".
- throwaway5752 8y ago
  You may not intend it, but when you write, "created by billionaire bankers" it doesn't add to the conversation much (specific behavior influenced by that funding would be more useful, if it exists) and is recalls some kind of unpalatable language/imagery used by far right groups - which I'm definitely not accusing you of, to be clear. One thing you may not know is that they publish their full financials, in accordance with the mission statement around transparency. You can see their full 2017 finances here: https://assets.propublica.org/2017-Financial-Statements-for-Pro-Publica-Inc.pdf https://assets.propublica.org/2017-Financial-Statements-for-... (and you can see they are financially conservative, but are very much in need of funding to support their operations). I have no connection to them other than admiration for how they are operated and their mission.

shiftpgdn 8y ago

Know what would actually help local news? Ad revenue share on their pages. So many older people treat Facebook as "the internet" are rarely venture off platform.

ojbyrne 8y ago
Maybe we have a different idea of “older” people, but my experience is that older people actually still read newspapers (ie dead trees).

creaghpatr 8y ago

With stipulations, of course.

warent 8y ago

Interestingly the post says nothing about Sinclair which makes me think this is nothing more than a gigantic media partnership and yet another reason to distrust the news.

joshfraser 8y ago

Facebook already has way too much power in their ability to shape reality for billions of people. Now they have even more power as the local news companies will be beholden to their investor.

zoul 8y ago

As someone who has been running a local newspaper for the last four years in a town of about 11 thousand people, getting money or support from Facebook would feel like someone robbing you and then being so kind as to split the money with you. My trust in them is exactly zero. They have practically monopolized news distribution, helped to destroy the business model of an important social service and now they would like to make up for it by giving a fraction of the money back?

freehunter 8y ago
I also run a local news outlet, digital-only though and not print. Facebook is both the reason for our success and also the source of our biggest pain. They almost put us out of business within the last year. For how they're helping, it's really hard to get people to care about websites. People as a whole just don't care. They don't want to visit your website. So we publish our stories and share them to Facebook. We get about a 10% click through of people who saw the story, which is better than we'd do without publishing to Facebook. On the other hand, our biggest draw is the event calendar, organizing all of the city and business events into one local calendar. People visit for the events, and then also click on news headlines they find interesting. Up until April 2018, we got this event data from the Facebook events API and linked it all back to Facebook if people wanted more details. A win-win I think. In April 2018, they shut off the events API with zero warning. So these public events from businesses who want people to attend their events, events which are visible by people who are not even logged into Facebook, are now considered private data by Facebook and no longer part of their API. The big draw of aggregating them is that people see a curated list of good events that are actually near them: in a small town, just clicking Discover on Facebook events shows you mostly stuff from the big cities nearby. It takes a few clicks to get to events actually happening in the small town itself. We still have it, but we have to type it all by hand every week, which leaves less time for writing stories, talking to story leads and city officials and customers, selling ads, you know the actual "local news" part of the business. Facebook, if you're reading this and want to help local news: turn the public events API back on. A local band playing at my local brewery is not private information, it is the definition of "things that should be shared".
- 8y ago

monkeynotes 8y ago

> Last year, we worked to better understand what kind of news people want to see on Facebook. This opening line is just all wrong. News isn't about 'what you want to see', writing news to garner clicks is basically another way of saying 'our news reporting is fundamentally biased'. Real journalism isn't entertainment. But, I get it, real journalism doesn't sell, people don't have time to understand world problems, don't care much about corruption unless it's dramatic, don't care about plain boring facts. Facebook understands that in order to own a market they have to spoon-feed it what it wants. Curate an audience of idle minds and feed them what they measurably want. This play to 'local news' is simply a tool to advance their own agenda, they want to own local news and help you feel that FB is all warm and 'local' to your needs. Your 'local' world-view, sponsored by Facebook. It's kind of sick really.

jdironman 8y ago
Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with nor endorse Facebook. I actually deleted mine for 6 months before making a new one to keep in touch with friends. But, I will not knock a company for wanting to maximize profits. They want their users to want to use their platform. If I owned a social media, or any product really, I would want to do everything I can to keep them coming back. I feel like as long as it isn't illegal, and done with best practices (ethically and morally) then that is what a free market is about. Should a competitor arise and do it better then That would be fantastic! Markets thrive through competition and freedom of choice. But as it stands there is not a whole lot of competition state side. I don't agree with a lot that Facebook, or Mark, does. But I have respect for them from strictly a business point of view for staying above water as long as they have. I just wish there was a viable competitor.
- thanatropism 8y ago
  There are many compelling arguments that Facebook is addictive. I remember feeling physically ill, as if struck by the flu, the first day I quit facebook. (You might argue with Milton Friedman, that the free market should be allowed to provide addictive goods. This may well be true, but there's no D.A.R.E for social media; there are also very few non-social media users you might compare with social media users for reference, as you might for potheads and cokeheads.)

vilijou 8y ago

Great! Though nothing on how the Facebook click-bait business model is at odds with good journalism, which has led to the decline of reputable newspapers and rise of Buzzfeed.

joelrunyon 8y ago

Anyone else not want local news support coming from FB of all places?

yumraj 8y ago

Best win-win outcome IMO would be for Facebook to pay itself this $300M as an incentive to stay completely out of news, local and otherwise.

everythingisbad 8y ago
prevent people from posting news articles? you know that facebook doesnt post or promote news itself... right?

fareesh 8y ago

My favourite story involving Facebook and the news is when Facebook's head of news - Campbell Brown (the former CNN anchor), went down to Australia. She was hired after the 2016 election as a go-between for Facebook and news organizations. According to a report in "The Australian" she is quoted to have allegedly said "We will help you revitalise journalism... in a few years the reverse looks like I’ll be holding your hands with your dying business like in a hospice" and "We are not interested in talking to you about your traffic and referrals anymore. That is the old world and there is no going back – Mark wouldn’t agree to this" Then Facebook denied that this happened. So to summarize: - Facebook is accused of not doing enough to combat fake news - Facebook hires Campbell Brown to be a point person to deal with the fake news situation - A newspaper reports that Campbell Brown allegedly tried to push them around - Facebook says this is fake news

legohead 8y ago

Do these execs / decision makers live in some fantasy land where they think this looks and sounds okay? I assume none of the employees were asked about this, as any rational person would tell them "wait a second, I think this is stupid."

gammateam 8y ago

Might as well have been posted by The Onion

CodeSheikh 8y ago

Or Facebook to Invest $300m in Influencing Local News. Facebook newsfeed model inherently works against local news and small guys (unless some certain piece goes viral once in a while). Local news outlet based out of some small locality does not have a huge follower base that gets Facebook's attention. This is just another PR stunt by Facebook.

IronWolve 8y ago
Same problem when using google youtube, they push CNN ahead of other news bloggers. CNN is also excluded from being blocked like normal channels. The future of Facebook news is their curated hand picked news.

roseburg 8y ago

The old local news model is dying because it's top heavy and has enormous overhead. Local news isn't dying though, and is as valuable as ever. It's just in the process of completely changing. One person can now do more with 1/1000th the budget of a local Newspaper with the barrier to entry being hard work, good writing skills, social media savvy and a love of the place they are covering. More money to these organizations will just keep them on life support longer. Now if they changed their model 100% that would be a completely different story. The future of journalism will be a lot of small teams (1-4) of writers/journalists/personalities running their own show in their city or state. The financial woes of the old news industry is a symptom. A change is needed.

MrLeftHand 8y ago

A platform that is renowned for sanitising the world around us to fit their agenda, invests in news outlets. Is anyone else seeing the problem here? I am glad I left that platform.

ausbah 8y ago

it's amazing how facebook has become an internet within the internet for stuff like looking at news, company information, etc.

swasheck 8y ago
my wife just told me that they're presenting recipes to her for her to save in some other corner of her facebook ... experience. they really are attempting to become an "internet within the Internet." kinda reminiscent of how AOL started.

iicc 8y ago

It's a good idea, but facebook can't be trusted. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/dec/13/they-dont-care-facebook-fact-checking-in-disarray-as-journalists-push-to-cut-ties https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/dec/13/they-dont... >Journalists paid to help fix Facebook’s fake news problem say they have lost trust in the platform >“They’ve essentially used us for crisis PR,” said Brooke Binkowski, former managing editor of Snopes, a factchecking site that has partnered with Facebook for two years. “They’re not taking anything seriously. They are more interested in making themselves look good and passing the buck … They clearly don’t care.”

swasheck 8y ago
> It's a good idea, but facebook can't be trusted. In my opinion it seems like the foundations for a Patron/Client relationship. Those typically only really work out for the two parties involved.

mudil 8y ago

I am a publisher of a medical technologies website since 2004. To really help journalism, Facebook and Google need to get out of the surveillance capitalism business. I left this comment before on a different thread. What we have now is monopolized internet. Few entities, like Google and FB, took over the internet and crafted the landscape to their advantage. They monopolized ads revenue, search traffic, and more importantly, they are actively spying on the general public, taking away any possible advantages from publishers. So website for doctors cannot make money by advertising to doctors. Doctors will see Google ads on Candy Crush. The result is a dearth of advertising money for publishers and regulations aimed at destroying any attempt to take over these behemoths. Local news is dead, because Google and Facebook know your location, and they sell it. When was the last time you saw GFPR notice on Facebook or Google? Do you think publishers enjoy having "Please Donate" pop-ups? When was the last time you heard of investment rounds in online publishers, or any publisher? Why do you think Denver Post and USA Today are barely alive? In the olden days we had websites and blog networks being born, Gawker, Weblogs Inc, TechCrunch network, political networks, etc etc. And what do we have now? Central stations with fake news shenanigans and retarded memes. While publishers, including your local newspaper and your favorite websites, are struggling.

luckydata 8y ago

Lion invests $300M in the preservation of gazelles.

telaport 8y ago

lol sure. Supporting local news with Russian propaganda

drugme 8y ago

Facebook's idea of news is "anything that keeps you more addicted to our app, and/or more easily targetable for ads".

maxhedrome 8y ago

“We noticed that others were using our platform for psychological manipulation, we can no longer continue to allow this unless it’s Facebook approved messaging” -Mark Zuckerfuck

rblion 8y ago

The more they force themselves into the people's lives, the more people will be pushed away. Just watch.