Facebook News to discontinue editorial curation by humans
Meta has signalled this week that it will ditch human editors for content curation on its News section and turn to an algorithmic solution by the end of the year.
According to Facebook, the News section now is a digest curated by “an independent team of experienced journalists”. The content curation is informed by elements of prevalence, impact, interest and diversity.
In Australia, Facebook News launched in 2021 to selected users alongside a $15 million news fund. The launch was delayed due to discussions around the media bargaining code.
Andrew Hunter, news partnerships, Meta Australia said: “Along with European curation deals expiring, we plan to end our in-house curation of Facebook News in Australia by the end of the year.
“This update will have no impact on our commercial deals and the Facebook News product will still be accessible in Australia.’
He said other products including Watch and Reel have “benefited from the support of curation”, and Meta will continuously invest in “areas that align with user preferences.”
Meta reported its Q3 earnings last week, where Facebook showed a steady increase in daily active users, reporting 1.98 billion on average for September 2022, an increase of 3% year-over-year.
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Darcy Song was a reporter at Mumbrella, covering media owners, adtech and social platforms. She left in October 2023.
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