Facebook pays millions of dollars to let users read newspapers right on the app

On October 25, Facebook announced the launch of its Facebook News service, allowing users to read news according to their preferences. In a statement, the social network said that Facebook News helps people control the news they read and discover many different types of news right inside the app. Not everyone sees this new item.

Facebook News was born in the context of Mark Zuckerberg’s company is having difficulty limiting fake news on the platform. In 2016, Facebook was criticized after a former employee revealed that the “trending” news item was tampered with. Although denied, the company eventually retired the feature in 2018. Recently, Zuckerberg was opposed because of the policy of allowing political ads to contain false information.

Facebook has been developing the Facebook News project for months. According to the Wall Street Journal, the company can pay millions of dollars for publications to be allowed to post on Facebook. For paid newspapers, users can read for free on Facebook but pay for if you want to read other articles.

The launch of Facebook News was held in New York (USA) with the participation of CEO News Corp Robert Thomson. Mr. Thomson and Chairman of News Corp Rupert Murdoch have called on giants like Facebook and Google to pay content similar to the cable TV providers to pay to broadcast the program.

At the time of publication, Facebook News is only visible to a portion of US users. Some publications appearing on News include Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, USA Today, Buzzfeed, and NBC Universal. Facebook News posts are selected by a group of journalists, independently and not subject to Facebook.