Social media has become a huge feature in todays generation. Young adults, teens, and children are surrounded my technology whether it be their Apple products, or gaming consoles. Americans continue to grow with the new features social media provides year after year, and it would only make sense to have all information in one place.
Facebook is moving forward with their trials of providing news content on its app. By hiring writers to write these news articles will give users more access to relevant news topics. A Vox article informed readers, “Users who click on the icon will see headlines for a handful of topic stories, selected by Facebook editors and a personalized selection of headlines selected by Facebook’s algorithmic software.” Once users click on the headline, the user will be taken to the publishers’ own site to view the article and what the author has to say. Facebook, essentially, is just the provider of the news, the news articles won’t be stored on the Facebook App. Facebook is an app that most people have and use on a daily basis; by providing another section that is actually relevant to the users and informs everyone on what is happening in the world will only help keep everyone aware.
As it is, most young adults result to social media for their news sources. Social media outlets can release news quickly and provide its users informative news. Twitter is a social media outlet that many users go to when needing news updates. Having a news section in Facebook will only keep the app up in competition with other social media outlets and give users a more personalized news feed than the regular Apple News app. In a The Verge article, it states, “The tab is also personalized based on what you read, the company says, with the tab serving up a better reflection of your interests over time. You can also personalize the tab by using controls to hide publishers, articles, and subjects you are not interesting in seeing.” Having this feature throughout Facebook, can interest users to actually stay up to date on news topics but still keeping themselves invested by seeing things they truly want to see.
Getting news from social media can be preserved as fake news, or dramatic. If Facebook pulls this off and provides their users with the articles they say they are going too, this is going to work well. While it can be viewed as a way to release fake news, with Mark Zuckerberg paying writers to write news articles, there is no way he would endorse fake news to be published on his app. Facebook used to be an app that provided news to its users. Writer Craig Timberg of The Washington Post, writes, “The move, which will put the social media giant squarely back into the news-delivery business after having de-emphasized it last year, is seen within the news industry as a step toward the long-sought goal of having technology companies pay for the content they deliver to users.”
Facebook can become another source to receive quality news if done correctly. Users should focus in on some features to make sure the article is correct or not. Paying attention that there is a credited author for the article, seeing what date, if there is one, is up to date, along with if the article has any sources. If the article has sources, pay attention to who the sources are and that the sources aren’t all anonymous; anonymous sources can result in making the news article fake.
Each generation is only getting more familiar with the advancements of technology. Everything will sooner rather than later revolve around having a phone or some type of technology that gives someone access to everything. Having Facebook add a news tab to their app is only a step into moving all news to online and social media. Users should not be surprised at this new update to the app, users should start preparing for more advancements within this app and other social media platforms.
