The platform is criticized for taking advertising cash away from newspapers and publications, forcing them to shut down.
Despite the problems caused by Facebook’s algorithmic news feed, specifically the spread of fake news and misinformation, the social network desires to push itself deeper into the news cycle.

The social media platform is attempting to launch a “news tab” this autumn, and is presently in talks with publishers to pay the maximum amount as $3 million (£2.4 million) to license content as well as stories and headlines, in line with the Wall Street Journal. It’s not clear if that figure is for individual publishers or a complete payment to all news organizations.

Facebook has pitched the service to news outlets as well as ABC News, Dow Jones, the Washington Post and Bloomberg.

Facebook has long been lambasted for taking advertising revenue away from publishers and newspapers, contributing to the ending of local news. In the U.S.A. around 1,800 local papers have closed or integrated since 2004, while within the UK around 228 local titles closed between 2004 and 2018.

According to eMarketer, the platform will take a 21.8 per cent share of all ad cash generated online, while Google will take 37.2 per cent.
The social network tried to mitigate a number of the issues it caused by launching a Community News Project within the Great Britain. Declared last November, Facebook is providing a £4.5 million fund for the National Council for the training of Journalists (NCTJ) and local news suppliers to train and pay the salaries of around 82 journalists over two years.

This week, the corporate revealed an update on the project after training the primary tranche of 33 reporters in June. Over 4,000 individuals applied for the roles.
This news service looks to be in a different way for Facebook to undertake and make up for the impact it’s had on the media scene.

CNN senior media reporter Oliver Darcy tweeted that Buzzfeed’s founder Jonah Peretti said it was “exciting to see Facebook build progress in this direction”. Last year, Peretti said Facebook should pay publishers, partly because it’ll enable the corporate to have additional management over what’s showing up within the news feed to prevent the spread of misinformation.

Speaking to Digiday , Peretti said: “It’s in Facebook’s interest to share news feed revenue, not because it’s good for the world, however it allows Facebook to have some management of what’s showing up within the news feed. If they say they want local or trusted news, they say that will get additional distribution and more revenue, thus corporations can produce more of it.”