6 ms·

Facebook News

25 points by HeinZawHtet 6y ago

corentin88 6y ago
It’s not new and was released about a year ago.
- johnvega 6y ago
  Scroll down to the bottom of page, you'll see "Facebook © 2019"
  - hknd 6y ago
    Probably just re-using a footer component which wasn't updated yet
    - martini333 6y ago
      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24765994 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24765994
      - hknd 6y ago
        wow :cry:
  - kordlessagain 6y ago
    The fake rage is from 2020, however.
the_gipsy 6y ago
And of course I'm greeted by a non-compliant GDPR popup.
- rendall 6y ago
  Interesting. I didn't even get a popup. I checked the local storage for the site and they have stored exactly 0 bytes. Given FBs reputation, I'm quite surprised!
  - andy_ppp 6y ago
    They fingerprint you everywhere, one way or another.
yesdocs 6y ago
Nope. Not doing it
alphagrep12345 6y ago
Build a more personalized news experience? Hide publishers you're not interested in? Don't people from facebook see this'd increase the already existing polarization and information bubbles?
- hknd 6y ago
  Literally the first thought which popped in my head.
  - daveslash 6y ago
    Agreed - first thought that popped into my head. Second thought: Wait, don't I do that already? I mean - there are certain news sources that I explicitly avoid (or at least, don't trust at all). Others that I check all the time and trust a lot. Then there's a slew in between that I check periodically and somewhat trust. As much as my knee jerk reaction is against this, I also am asking myself: how's it really different from my own behavior? (and should I re-evaluate my own behavior). Edit: Spelling/grammar.
- bszupnick 6y ago
  > Don't people from facebook see this'd increase the already existing polarization and information bubbles? Facebook isn't optimizing for the preservation of democratic norms or decrease of polarization; they're optimizing for eyeballs, time, and attention (which obviously translates to money). To answer your question, they may not see it because they don't care, and if they do see it, they still don't care as that's not their KPI. (Disclaimer: I'm not talking about specific employees but rather the company as an organization)
- frodprefect 6y ago
  To be fair, this is a standard feature of most news apps. Like Apple's.
- Spivak 6y ago
  I get the idealism of wanting to expose people to a more diverse set of news sources but I also don't think I would ever use a news app that didn't let me filter out the chaff. Irrespective of your political beliefs there's still a lot of low-quality journalism out there that simply isn't worth your time. I do think it's funny that "news" has become hard synonymous with "politics" despite the fact that columns like the arts, lifestyle, product reviews, food, local events, human interest, short fiction, non-political opinions, and sports are just as much news and are, arguably, the good bits.
r721 6y ago
Blog post: https://about.fb.com/news/2019/10/introducing-facebook-news/ https://about.fb.com/news/2019/10/introducing-facebook-news/ (October 25, 2019)
akshaydeshraj 6y ago
Could have taken this opportunity to include some degree of "truth" or "fact checking", but no. Introducing the "Democracy Breaker 2.0"
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
marban 6y ago
Just in time for the official launch of https://upstract.com https://upstract.com later this week.
- webscout 6y ago
  Ah, the good old popurls days ;)
- dbbk 6y ago
  Please don't unnecessarily spam your product.
- sdoering 6y ago
  This reminded me of a project an acquaintance of mine did in 1997/98 when he build a news aggregator site. Mind this was before Google News arrived and it was a great way of seeing all headlines from the bigger (ans also smaller) sites in Germany. Until the publishers came, dragged him to court on claims of copyright infringement (for doing deep links into the articles). That was a time, when clicking on a teaser brought you to a category page where you had to click the teaser again to get to the intended article. Why? To increase ad impressions. Sometimes you had to click three or four levels deep. So they feared the lost ad impressions. They pulled the big guns on a high school kid creating a service. He agreed to delist them and the service was dead in the water. Because nearly every publisher wanted his sites to be delisted. One or one and a half years later Google entered the German internet with Google News and the publishers sued again - this time it came to a trial and Google won. But 20 years later the publishers still try to lobby for laws against aggregators, against quoting from "their" news. Thanks for this trip down memory lane into the late 90ies. Now I feel old. ;-)
  - marban 6y ago
    I've been running this under various brands for 25 years — Back then I was the #1 referrer for Reddit and Digg so to this day, i still take some credit for their success ;) Folks from Conde to Forbes call me to get on the site — no one ever asked to be removed. It's great not to be Google.
- 6y ago
andy_ppp 6y ago
I feel like this conversation is always relevant when giving Facebook data: Zuck: yea so if you ever need info about anyone at harvard Zuck: just ask Zuck: i have over 4000 emails, pictures, addresses, sns Friend: what!? how’d you manage that one? Zuck: people just submitted it Zuck: i don’t know why Zuck: they “trust me” Zuck: dumb fucks Anyone who thinks Facebook are in this to help publishers are dreaming.
umaar 6y ago
Wow that landing page has an animated marquee sort of banner (a bunch of company logos sliding across horizontally), and instead of using CSS transforms, they've done it with a 23mb gif. Really curious as to why.
- jug 6y ago
  Haha, it's janky and cropping parts of some logotypes too. Totally against the otherwise smooth animations and style in the rest of the page. It looks bolted on and I wouldn't be surprised it was a late decision to showcase some publishers and added by non web devs...
  - umaar 6y ago
    Was making me dizzy looking at it! Yes non web devs, or web devs in a rush because of a poorly managed project + deadline I reckon.
    - phkahler 6y ago
      >> Yes non web devs, or web devs in a rush because of a poorly managed project + deadline I reckon Why? You and the parent comment seem to imply that there are no crappy web devs, or at least none at FB. There are crappy people in every profession, as well as mostly good people who are crappy at just some aspects of their job.
- marban 6y ago
  Benefit-cost ratio of owning your own CDN.
- Sodaware 6y ago
  Bring back the `<marquee>` tag.
- black3r 6y ago
  and when you click on how it works, it greets you with a 31MB gif
- 6y ago
AHappyCamper 6y ago
Business wise, I'm sure it's a good idea for them. Unfortunately I don't completely trust Facebook to be impartial the news they report. They could very easily skew a narrative on a particular issue by placing news articles they agree with at the top, and not displaying articles that they don't agree with. That said, it's their business and they can do with it what they want, and it's still our decision if we want to use that feature.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
neiman 6y ago
I'm sure this is going to be very objective and neither manipulated or manipulative at all.
itsbenweeks 6y ago
Anybody else having their browser history busted by visiting the link? Looks like it opens a new window for this page, and then closes the old one.
- Sodaware 6y ago
  Worked fine on Chrome, but broke the back button on Firefox.
  - mzg 6y ago
    probably a result of Firefox's Facebook sandboxing
karmasimida 6y ago
Aside from all controversy... How would this News app stand against existing market players? I don't see the differentiation factor TBH
vernie 6y ago
Aw hell nah
input_sh 6y ago
> Note: News is only available on the Facebook apps for Android and iPhone in the U.S. You won't be able to access News on your browser.
- basch 6y ago
  I wasnt even able to access it in the mobile app. doa.
danmg 6y ago
Closed it as soon as I saw "Open the Facebook App". The only way I use Facebook is within a container in Firefox. I'll never install a Facebook developed application onto a phone ever again. If what you're doing is making a competitor to google news, it should just be a webpage.
TnkBldr 6y ago
Bottom right: "Facebook © 2019"
indymike 6y ago
Anyone else think that news isn't really all that exciting? Everyone gets news spammed by Google, Apple, Microsoft and every media related thing already... Will be interesting to see how the whole family/friends content works with this in the long run because it sure seems like FB was successful by presenting a stream of personal stuff that users cared much more deeply about (like my neices new kitten picutres). Honestly, news is mostly terrible experience right now, and the prospects of facebook delivering news is about as exciting as Mafia Wars invites and Farmeville status posts from back in the day.

Facebook News

25 points by HeinZawHtet 6y ago

corentin88 6y ago

It’s not new and was released about a year ago.

johnvega 6y ago
Scroll down to the bottom of page, you'll see "Facebook © 2019"
- hknd 6y ago
  Probably just re-using a footer component which wasn't updated yet
  - martini333 6y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24765994 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24765994
    - hknd 6y ago
      wow :cry:
- kordlessagain 6y ago
  The fake rage is from 2020, however.

the_gipsy 6y ago

And of course I'm greeted by a non-compliant GDPR popup.

rendall 6y ago
Interesting. I didn't even get a popup. I checked the local storage for the site and they have stored exactly 0 bytes. Given FBs reputation, I'm quite surprised!
- andy_ppp 6y ago
  They fingerprint you everywhere, one way or another.

yesdocs 6y ago

Nope. Not doing it

alphagrep12345 6y ago

Build a more personalized news experience? Hide publishers you're not interested in? Don't people from facebook see this'd increase the already existing polarization and information bubbles?

hknd 6y ago
Literally the first thought which popped in my head.
- daveslash 6y ago
  Agreed - first thought that popped into my head. Second thought: Wait, don't I do that already? I mean - there are certain news sources that I explicitly avoid (or at least, don't trust at all). Others that I check all the time and trust a lot. Then there's a slew in between that I check periodically and somewhat trust. As much as my knee jerk reaction is against this, I also am asking myself: how's it really different from my own behavior? (and should I re-evaluate my own behavior). Edit: Spelling/grammar.
bszupnick 6y ago
> Don't people from facebook see this'd increase the already existing polarization and information bubbles? Facebook isn't optimizing for the preservation of democratic norms or decrease of polarization; they're optimizing for eyeballs, time, and attention (which obviously translates to money). To answer your question, they may not see it because they don't care, and if they do see it, they still don't care as that's not their KPI. (Disclaimer: I'm not talking about specific employees but rather the company as an organization)
frodprefect 6y ago
To be fair, this is a standard feature of most news apps. Like Apple's.
Spivak 6y ago
I get the idealism of wanting to expose people to a more diverse set of news sources but I also don't think I would ever use a news app that didn't let me filter out the chaff. Irrespective of your political beliefs there's still a lot of low-quality journalism out there that simply isn't worth your time. I do think it's funny that "news" has become hard synonymous with "politics" despite the fact that columns like the arts, lifestyle, product reviews, food, local events, human interest, short fiction, non-political opinions, and sports are just as much news and are, arguably, the good bits.

r721 6y ago

Blog post: https://about.fb.com/news/2019/10/introducing-facebook-news/ https://about.fb.com/news/2019/10/introducing-facebook-news/ (October 25, 2019)

akshaydeshraj 6y ago

Could have taken this opportunity to include some degree of "truth" or "fact checking", but no. Introducing the "Democracy Breaker 2.0"

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

marban 6y ago

Just in time for the official launch of https://upstract.com https://upstract.com later this week.

webscout 6y ago
Ah, the good old popurls days ;)
dbbk 6y ago
Please don't unnecessarily spam your product.
sdoering 6y ago
This reminded me of a project an acquaintance of mine did in 1997/98 when he build a news aggregator site. Mind this was before Google News arrived and it was a great way of seeing all headlines from the bigger (ans also smaller) sites in Germany. Until the publishers came, dragged him to court on claims of copyright infringement (for doing deep links into the articles). That was a time, when clicking on a teaser brought you to a category page where you had to click the teaser again to get to the intended article. Why? To increase ad impressions. Sometimes you had to click three or four levels deep. So they feared the lost ad impressions. They pulled the big guns on a high school kid creating a service. He agreed to delist them and the service was dead in the water. Because nearly every publisher wanted his sites to be delisted. One or one and a half years later Google entered the German internet with Google News and the publishers sued again - this time it came to a trial and Google won. But 20 years later the publishers still try to lobby for laws against aggregators, against quoting from "their" news. Thanks for this trip down memory lane into the late 90ies. Now I feel old. ;-)
- marban 6y ago
  I've been running this under various brands for 25 years — Back then I was the #1 referrer for Reddit and Digg so to this day, i still take some credit for their success ;) Folks from Conde to Forbes call me to get on the site — no one ever asked to be removed. It's great not to be Google.
6y ago

andy_ppp 6y ago

I feel like this conversation is always relevant when giving Facebook data: Zuck: yea so if you ever need info about anyone at harvard Zuck: just ask Zuck: i have over 4000 emails, pictures, addresses, sns Friend: what!? how’d you manage that one? Zuck: people just submitted it Zuck: i don’t know why Zuck: they “trust me” Zuck: dumb fucks Anyone who thinks Facebook are in this to help publishers are dreaming.

umaar 6y ago

Wow that landing page has an animated marquee sort of banner (a bunch of company logos sliding across horizontally), and instead of using CSS transforms, they've done it with a 23mb gif. Really curious as to why.

jug 6y ago
Haha, it's janky and cropping parts of some logotypes too. Totally against the otherwise smooth animations and style in the rest of the page. It looks bolted on and I wouldn't be surprised it was a late decision to showcase some publishers and added by non web devs...
- umaar 6y ago
  Was making me dizzy looking at it! Yes non web devs, or web devs in a rush because of a poorly managed project + deadline I reckon.
  - phkahler 6y ago
    >> Yes non web devs, or web devs in a rush because of a poorly managed project + deadline I reckon Why? You and the parent comment seem to imply that there are no crappy web devs, or at least none at FB. There are crappy people in every profession, as well as mostly good people who are crappy at just some aspects of their job.
marban 6y ago
Benefit-cost ratio of owning your own CDN.
Sodaware 6y ago
Bring back the `<marquee>` tag.
black3r 6y ago
and when you click on how it works, it greets you with a 31MB gif
6y ago

AHappyCamper 6y ago

Business wise, I'm sure it's a good idea for them. Unfortunately I don't completely trust Facebook to be impartial the news they report. They could very easily skew a narrative on a particular issue by placing news articles they agree with at the top, and not displaying articles that they don't agree with. That said, it's their business and they can do with it what they want, and it's still our decision if we want to use that feature.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

neiman 6y ago

I'm sure this is going to be very objective and neither manipulated or manipulative at all.

itsbenweeks 6y ago

Anybody else having their browser history busted by visiting the link? Looks like it opens a new window for this page, and then closes the old one.

Sodaware 6y ago
Worked fine on Chrome, but broke the back button on Firefox.
- mzg 6y ago
  probably a result of Firefox's Facebook sandboxing

karmasimida 6y ago

Aside from all controversy... How would this News app stand against existing market players? I don't see the differentiation factor TBH

vernie 6y ago

Aw hell nah

input_sh 6y ago

> Note: News is only available on the Facebook apps for Android and iPhone in the U.S. You won't be able to access News on your browser.

basch 6y ago
I wasnt even able to access it in the mobile app. doa.

danmg 6y ago

Closed it as soon as I saw "Open the Facebook App". The only way I use Facebook is within a container in Firefox. I'll never install a Facebook developed application onto a phone ever again. If what you're doing is making a competitor to google news, it should just be a webpage.

TnkBldr 6y ago

indymike 6y ago

Anyone else think that news isn't really all that exciting? Everyone gets news spammed by Google, Apple, Microsoft and every media related thing already... Will be interesting to see how the whole family/friends content works with this in the long run because it sure seems like FB was successful by presenting a stream of personal stuff that users cared much more deeply about (like my neices new kitten picutres). Honestly, news is mostly terrible experience right now, and the prospects of facebook delivering news is about as exciting as Mafia Wars invites and Farmeville status posts from back in the day.