There’s no question that many people get their news — fake or otherwise — from Facebook. One widget that Facebook launched back in 2014 was Trending News in the sidebar of Facebook users’ news feed. That section will soon be disappearing for a couple of reasons. First, Facebook mentions that the widget is currently only available in five countries and only accounts for 1.5% of clicks to news publishers. Second, more users are consuming their news through mobile and video content.
Facebook is working on “future news experiences… to help people stay informed about timely, breaking news that matters to them, while making sure the news they see on Facebook is from trustworthy and quality sources.” Some of the news experiences Facebook is working on to replace the Trending section include:
Breaking News Label: A test we’re running with 80 publishers across North America, South America, Europe, India and Australia lets publishers put a “breaking news” indicator on their posts in News Feed. We’re also testing breaking news notifications.
Today In: We’re testing a dedicated section on Facebook called Today In that connects people to the latest breaking and important news from local publishers in their city, as well as updates from local officials and organizations.
News Video in Watch: We will soon have a dedicated section on Facebook Watch in the US where people can view live coverage, daily news briefings and weekly deep dives that are exclusive to Watch.
Trending will be removed from Facebook at some point this week and the functionality will also be removed from Facebook apps and third-party integration.
What do you think about Facebook’s decision to remove the Trending News section? Do you think their “future news experiences” will be more trustworthy and reliable? Let us know in the comments below or on Google+, Twitter, or Facebook.
[button link=”https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/06/removing-trending/” icon=”fa-external-link” side=”left” target=”blank” color=”285b5e” textcolor=”ffffff”]Source: Facebook[/button]
