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Facebook could launch a dedicated news tab in partnership with “high-quality” publishers, if CEO Mark Zuckerberg carries out his latest vision for news content on the platform.
The dedicated news tab sounds similar to Facebook’s Watch tab, which hosts original programming and longer-form videos — and shares some of the advertising revenue with publishers.
“We want this to surface high-quality and trustworthy information,” Zuckerberg said in a conversation with Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner that was posted to Zuckerberg’s Facebook page. “I think there’s real opportunity within a separate news surface to have better monetization for publishers than we have today in News Feed.”
Facebook has been blamed in part for the erosion of traditional and digital media, through its hosting of often-free and widely shared news articles. As a result, Facebook has been toying with different ways to support digital publishers and simultaneously stop the spread of misinformation that purports to come from legitimate outlets.
Facebook would partner with publishers to make sure their content is available in the new feature, Zuckerberg said, similar to Apple’s latest push into subscription news.
“Local journalism is having a hard time transitioning to the internet in general, and I would hope that we can be one of the ways that we can support and make [that] more sustainable from a distribution and monetization perspective,” Zuckerberg said.
The new tab would be a free service for users, Zuckerberg said. The company wouldn’t employ journalists to produce news but could hire curators to maintain the quality of the product.
Facebook executives have been discussing the idea for a while, according to a company spokesperson, but the product is not yet in development.
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