Facebook Tests Removing Publishers From News Feed -- Unless They Pay (mashable.com)

According to a report via Mashable, Facebook is removing posts from Pages in the original News Feed and relegating them to another feed, forcing users to "pay to play" in order to have their content back in the News Feed. The setting is only available in Slovakia, Sri Lanka, Serbia, Bolivia, Guatemala, and Cambodia for now, but it could be rolled out to other countries later. From the report: The social network last week officially launched its secondary news feed called Explore. The feed generally features posts from Facebook Pages users don't follow. News Feed, meanwhile, hosts posts from friends and Pages users do follow. But that's not true for everyone. In six markets, Facebook has removed posts from Pages in the original News Feed and relegated them to another feed, Filip Struharik, editor and social media manager at Dennik N, wrote. That means Facebook's main feed is no longer a free playing field for publishers. Instead, it's a battlefield of "pay to play," where publishers have to pony up the dough to get back into the News Feed. It's a stark change from how media outlets have grown with Facebook. Publishers like BuzzFeed's Tasty and NowThis grew via distributing viral posts and videos on News Feed, as Ziad Ramley, former social lead at Al Jazeera English, wrote. While companies had to employ social media managers, they could generally rely on them sharing content without paying to boost it.

Comments

I nominate this article

[I'm New Around Here]

I nominate this article for the most confusing wording of any Slashdot article this month.

Re:I nominate this article

[Darinbob]

I don't understand it either. I assumed the news feeds were curated anyway; the buzzfeed crap was all in the "I'm bored" section ("13 stupid ways facebook is getting worse, read now!").

I don't see anything wrong with paying to get into the "this is real news!" section. I'd rather see headlines from AP than from some startup wannabe media site. So what's the story? That Facebook wants to be more sane, or that there are people who think that lots of clicks on click-bait is what should make a story newsworthy?

Re:I nominate this article

[Anonymous Coward]

I stopped using stupid facebook for anything and now my neighbor's dog is cured of cancer.

Re:I nominate this article

[GrumpySteen]

Blame Facebook. It's their terminology that's confusing things.

The News Feed is just the feed of posts from people you've friended and pages you've followed. Your sister's cat pictures are 'news' in this sense.

A publisher is just a non-personal page that posts articles. It could be a page run by a news publisher or a charity or a community organization. I follow half a dozen small bands who keep in touch with their fans through Facebook.

Some time ago, Facebook decided that following a page from a publisher is no longer enough for you to see all of the posts from that publisher. An algorithm decides who gets to see which posts you get to see what which ones you don't. At the same time, they added the ability for publishers to pay to promote their posts, which prevents the algorithm filtering them out of the feeds of their followers.

That apparently didn't make enough money, so now they're testing the idea of forcing all publishers' articles into a different feed. If you live in one of the countries where they're testing it, you won't see any of the posts on pages you've followed in your news feed unless the publishers pay to get them there.

Re:I nominate this article

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

So, evil then. Instead of a news distribution system to attract groups you can follow, evil.

Re:I nominate this article

[GrumpySteen]

Greedy is probably more accurate than evil, but greed does usually lead to evil results so ... close enough.

Re:I nominate this article

[rtb61]

They are basically charging facebook members to interact with other facebook members, they are just deciding upon a greed driven whim, who is targeted and censored and has to pay and who is not. Well beyond publishers, they will extend it out to the typical for profit youtuber as a example. The only publisher of content facebook will accept is facebook and the only acceptable propaganda is facebooks or the propaganda that pays facebook for access. Facebook users real, will just be treated like mushrooms, kept in the dark and fed bullshit. Then you have the imaginary facebook users controlled by AI selling interactions to advertisers (it works both ways and doesn't M$ cheat with numbers as well).

With AI you can create 100 million fake users to gull advertisers into spending money, ticking and clicking and corresponding away, as advertisers slowly go bankrupt wandering what the fuck is going on even though they have really great interactions with customers on say the Google network (masters of AI of creating an illusion).

Re:I nominate this article

[GrumpySteen]

Yep. It sucks. The bands I follow on there have tiny followings and can't afford to pay up like bigger companies. Some of them have trouble making their rent on a monthly basis, but Facebook still wants to extort money from them to show their posts to their followers.

Re:I nominate this article

[vlueboy]

Yep. It sucks. The bands I follow on there have tiny followings and can't afford to pay up like bigger companies. Some of them have trouble making their rent on a monthly basis, but Facebook still wants to extort money from them to show their posts to their followers.

That Facebook is "free" is the illusion here. The mantra "you are the product" we hear recited so often on /. requires SOMEONE to be on the non-product side of the table, right?

The band is the "buyer" in this case. Why shouldn't it pay for the privilege of having the product all nice and rounded up? It's not just pure ad companies being required to pay anymore, that is all.

Re:I nominate this article

[nospam007]

"Some time ago, Facebook decided that following a page from a publisher is no longer enough for you to see all of the posts from that publisher. An algorithm decides who gets to see which posts you get to see what which ones you don't. At the same time, they added the ability for publishers to pay to promote their posts, which prevents the algorithm filtering them out of the feeds of their followers."

The word you're looking for is 'extortion'.

Re:I nominate this article

[Gr8Apes]

So what's the story? That Facebook wants to be more sane,

Not at all, it's that FB has found a new way to squeeze cash out of what it was offering as a product.

Not shocking

[VY99]

This doesn't shock me in any way. This is just who they are, and anyone who's dealt with Facebook will totally understand.

Re:Not shocking

[DaMattster]

True! After all, Facebook needs to continually look for revenue streams as it loses them almost as often as it gains.

Another advantage

[Anonymous Coward]

This has the added bonus of censoring non-mainstream media companies, who won't be able to afford to pay.

I don't care

[shellster_dude]

I don't trust Facebook to curate my news for me. I use tools to block all Facebook News, so hopefully this just means my ad-blocking tools won't have to work overtime. Seems like a lot of hysteria over nothing.

Okay

[DaMattster]

This is a mixed bag here. On one hand, this should cut down on the yellow journalism because the outlets that are circulating garbage will go back into the woodwork like cockroaches once daylight breaks. Other other hand, there are some legitimate, non-mainstream news outlets like TYT which could suffer because they might not have the means to pay Facebook's ransom. At the end of the day, none of this has any applicability to me because I told Zuck to go suck a big fat one and deleted my account. Thank you Zuck for 3 wasted years of my life. Boy did it feel good to ditch Facebook .... Fear Of Missing Out is vastly overrated.

Re:Okay

[Anonymous Coward]

And on the third hand, isn't this exactly what everyone has always said Google should do in every story about a news website complaining about Google "giving away" their news for free?

Re:Okay

[sd4f]

TYT - The Young Turks... legitimate... are you being serious???

Re:Okay

[Altrag]

They're about as legit as any other media these days. They slant heavily left and they make no secret about it, but they're not generally making shit up like a lot of the (actually fake) "news" that apparently was coming through the FB feeds (and other social media) that ended up getting traced to sweatshops in various cheap labor countries (probably paid for by Russia but I don't think that part was ever conclusively proven.)

That said, they're not investigative reporters. They mostly just collect reports and articles that other media outlets put out and frame them in a leftist light (though they did recently introduce an investigative channel.. no idea if there's anything of interest on there yet though.)

Re:Okay

[sd4f]

From what I've seen, they don't admit that they heavily slant to the left, they make out that they're fair and unbiased, but it doesn't take long to realise that they're pushing their own barrows, so to speak.

Re:Okay

[Altrag]

"What you've seen" is obviously not much then. They're continually advertising (not just arguing for but actively advertising) their progressive democrat PAC and whatnot. I mean its not like they start every episode by disclaiming their political views but they definitely don't put on any airs of being unbiased.

That said, their bias isn't just "democrat" though, its "progressive democrat." So they like to call out Hillary Clinton and Tom Perez and others even in the democratic party that they perceive as too business-oriented. Look for any story with Bernie Sanders in it and they don't hold back singing his praises.

Re:Okay

[sd4f]

So your retort is basically saying that they're unfair and biased. Thanks for agreeing with me.

How is this any different?

[Leuf]

You've had to pay to get your non-personal page posts to be shown to more than a tiny percentage of the people that follow your page for a long time. Which is why I don't use it. Every time I go to Facebook they try to get me to buy an ad to actually show my posts, that I don't make, to somebody.

Re:How is this any different?

[GrumpySteen]

It's not so much different as it is an expansion. Now, instead of still showing posts to a percentage of followers, Facebook won't show posts from non-personal pages to any of the people following the page unless you pay up.

Re:How is this any different?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

It's a tiny shift really. Facebook already reduced the number of organic views that you'd get for posts to professional pages by at least an order of magnitude a long time ago.

If you use Facebook as a channel to reach your customers/fans/whatever, the game has been pay-to-play for a long time, and the only thing that matters is still whether or not you get a good return on your investment, just like any other advertising. Watch your numbers, and if Facebook isn't giving you good enough exposure, pull your funding and spend it somewhere else, whether that's Google ads for your business or posters for your local church fair to up in local stores.

Re: Incorrect

[CustomBuild]

Iâ(TM)m sure you meant to say âoedepending on your jurisdictionâ, or do you think the world abides by a universal set of laws?

It already was pay-to-play

[Anonymous Coward]

It was already pay-to-play. When I would post on my business page, it basically wouldn't show the post to people (even if it was an informational post instead of an ad) unless I paid to "boost this post." It pretty much seemed to treat content and ads as the same thing when posted on a business page. If I did give in and pay to "boost" a post, it would show the post to a bunch of click-happy people who click "like" on everything that shows up on their feeds, presumably in an attempt by FB to make it seem that I was getting value for the money I was wasting. The reality was that very few of those people actually clicked through to the website or watched the video, or whatever the intent of a given post was, they just clicked the like button, and if I looked at their profile (yes, companies can see who "likes" them) it was mostly a bunch of people who like/share everything indiscriminately (the kind of people who quickly get blocked by their FB friends).

I care

[harvey the nerd]

Fakebook with it's thieving owner, is long overdue to join MySpace and the NFL on the brands-that-shot-themselves-in-head list.

Re:I care

[modmans2ndcoming]

NFL? Seriously, your a "kneeling is dishonoring the flag and the troops and babies with cancer" dipship?

Re:I care

[Maxo-Texas]

If you want to keep politics to yourself then

a) Don't play the nation's anthem before the game. It is INHERENTLY POLITICAL to play the national anthem.

b) Don't force the players to be on the field when the anthem plays. This wasn't even an issue until 2009- before that players were in the locker room at that time.

c) Don't force the players to pay homage to a nation that's killing their 7 and 12 year old children, denying them credit, and giving them grossly unequal and unfair police and judicial treatment (most recently shooting an innocent black man with mental issues for running when they stopped him for failing to have a red rear reflector on his bike).

but hey.. I don't watch the NFL to begin with. When Bud Adams fired Bum Phillips, I lost all interest in the game.. over 25 years ago.

Re:I care

[Altrag]

While I agree we shouldn't be forcing the players to do anything, I hardly consider playing the anthem to be an inherently political action.

Its only political now because a famous guy did something unusual on a public broadcast of an extremely popular event -- and then the president went on a rant about it to really make sure it was widely covered.

And really, its not about the anthem or whether he stands or kneels or does cartwheels. If Kaepernick said he'd knelt to show solidarity with say, a friend suffering from MS.. people would have been all over it and he'd have been praised.

But he did it to protest violence against black people, which is not something a lot of folk like to talk about or think about. We prefer to stay in our little bubbles and pretend that racism was last century's problem just because we know the name of that one black dude in the office and even talk to him once in a while, and we're pretty sure he's never been shot.

Anyway point of my ramble is that its not the anthem that's political, nor is it even the kneeling -- its the message Kaepernick was trying to put out there that's political. The rest of it is just a setting that he was able to make use of to do that.

Re:I care

[upl8n87447]

Who said they're not being respectful? Was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. being disrespectful when he and others protested against racial injustices in this country? It could be argued that it's being disrespectful to not stand up (or in this case kneel) when you believe there are systematic transgressions being perpetrated against American people by public entities.

I mean, just because you're not personally impacted by said transgressions doesn't mean they don't exist. I think it shows a significant lack of empathy and understanding to not even question why a large chunk of NFL players are choosing to potentially sacrifice income to protest.

Meanwhile, I find it ironic that so many football fans are taking issue with this. If they love the game, then I would have hoped they would love and respect the players. Guess not. They're treating the players as well as they treat dogs they throw in a pit to fight. Only there for their entertainment. Nope, contrary to popular belief, these are real people, many of which grew up in the neighborhoods where treatment was less than just.

Re:I care

[Gr8Apes]

Anyway point of my ramble is that its not the anthem that's political

The anthem is always political, because it represents patriotism/nationalism/etc. I don't know what's more political at heart than that especially in these times where those things are wielded as weapons.

Re:I care

[Maxo-Texas]

Lol. Really? Playing a song that celebrates nationalism isn't political?

I suggest you consider that a little deeper.

Only in an authoritarian nation are you *required* to respect a random old drinking song in any case.

Our nation is supposed to be about freedom and free speech.

But you have a point, really they just want black people to shut up and not raise a stink.

As a texan, that irritates me a lot. It goes against fair play and decency and everything that texas stands for.

A person should be given the same chance- and the same treatment- regardless of their individual nature.

Re:I care

[Maxo-Texas]

They are protesting in a very respectful way.

Are they lowering their pants?

Are they flipping off or expressing some of the disgust they probably feel? Nope.

They are respectfully making a silent gesture to call attention to the fact that even as multi-millionaires this nation is hurting them and people they know simply for looking a certain way.

It's shameful, it's unchristian, it's disgusting the way this nation treats black people.

Re:I care

[Altrag]

Really? Is the anthem a republican or a democrat? What's its stance on health care, climate change or bailouts for the wealthy?

Its a symbol. And certainly symbols can be adopted and used exclusively by one side of any particular issue to the point that the symbol itself does indeed become political, but the national anthem, the flag, the bald eagle and so forth are not such. For all of the political differences in the US, especially this past year, its just assumed that (well, almost) everyone loves the country in general. The only "other side" here is traitors to the country. There's really no reason to demand or expect national pride from them for obvious reasons.

For another, perhaps somewhat silly example lets switch to the NHL where teams from Canada are in the league. At the beginning of games that host teams from both countries, both anthems are sung. Does that imply Canada is taking over the US? Or vice-versa? Of course not, because its not political -- its simply a sign of respect.

Re:I care

[harvey the nerd]

Actually the "protest" is a racially charged, in-your-face insult to a large fraction of the paying public, and a power play. It is not relevant to my original comment whether the national anthem is political or not etc.

The NFL has simply trashed its brand with a large fraction of its paying customers.
I already didn't care about football.

Re:I care

[Maxo-Texas]

I don't care about football, but I do care about the way racism is ruining minority people's lives.

Besides empathy, fairness, and justice- treating minorities fairly would also substantially reduce my tax bill.

We incarcerate and criminalize more citizens than any other country in the world. Once you are incarcerated and criminalized, your odds of producing a good income are much lower. Your odds of literally costing $31,000 per year to house and feed are much higher. It is much more expensive to imprison people than it is to put them on welfaire- just shy of twice as expensive.

You also need more police (more money) (and loss of personal freedom and privacy) when you criminalize people. And you also pay larger civil settlements (tens of millions of dollars for some cities) when your police illegally execute someone because the target was a minority.

I support the NFL for both philosophical reasons and practical selfish reasons.

You should too.

Re:I care

[j-beda]

Stop being reasonable. I was looking for an argument!

FACESPEAK!

[Zorro]

"Who controls the past controls the future..."
“War is peace..."

nobody escapes

[Anonymous Coward]

I told Zuck to go suck a big fat one and deleted my account. Thank you Zuck for 3 wasted years of my life. Boy did it feel good to ditch Facebook .... Fear Of Missing Out is vastly overrated.

nobody ever escapes from the borg, you are an experiment

As we know....

[modmans2ndcoming]

Those who pay are the most truthy.....($100K in fake news being sold during 2016 elections)

Re:As we know....

[bobbied]

LOL.. $100K which was spitting in the ocean of the total spending by all the campaigns didn't help Facebook's bottom line any, now did it..

Re:As we know....

[modmans2ndcoming]

Well directed spit still hits you in the eye.....and that is what happened. FB provides so much data about people you can target leaders in a group with ads and affect the whole group.

Re:As we know....

[DNS-and-BIND]

Which had more influence on American politics: $100k of facebook ads, half of which occurred after Election Day, or Bill Clinton accepting $500k from Russia, which caught the FBI's attention. Clinton gave a 90-minute speech to Renaissance Capital, a Kremlin connected bank that was promoting the Uranium One Deal's stock.

You know who the bagman was who took samples of the uranium to the Russians for inspection? Robert Mueller. Yes, THAT Mueller, the one who's investigating Trump and the one who wrote the memo in 2002 about fake WMD in Iraq, thus justifying the invasion on false pretenses.

Re:As we know....

[bobbied]

Well directed spit still hits you in the eye.....

Or, you are spitting into the wind yourself and get what you deserve when it lands back on you?

Nobody knows, but I'm hearing a LOT of theories that Muller is now looking into malfeasance by the other side. It explains why we've gone from daily wall to wall "The Russians did it! Impeachment is coming!" coverage to radio silence after 9 months. Why did they suddenly get off this hobby horse? Perhaps we are all tired of this and the news media finally realized they were beating a dead horse? OR Perhaps they realized they might be beating the wrong one?

Just a theory, one that isn't likely to be decided one way or the other for 6 to 9 months.

The first decade

[AHuxley]

is always free.

The Net will reroute around damage

[WillAffleckUW]

Information always wants to be free.

The more you squeeze the worlds of information, the more they will slip from your tentacles, Emperor Zuckerberg, and everyone will use some other source.

They are Just Asking for an Antitrust Lawsuit

[Anonymous Coward]

Their market share makes this an easy call. The DOJ needs to step on this fast and hard.

If FB gets away with this Verizon and Comcast will be demanding pay for play, or they block your website.

SubjectIsSubject

[p0p0]

Now I wonder if the media outlets whose articles they don't agree with suddenly can't seem to finish their transaction?

Re:good

[ewhac]

Newspapers have always filtered (or "censored" in your parlance) reader comments.

What, did you think the editorial page printed every single letter they received from readers? No, they filtered out the obvious garbage and tin foil hattery, not to mention the ones eith [sic] poor spelling and grammar. There was never a "golden age" of lofty free discussion in for-profit papers -- there has always been editorial control.

Was this an ideal system? No, particularly if you had an editor (or an owner (*cough*Hearst*cough)) with a political agenda. However, the utter absence of editorial control has led to the septic tanks we have now.

Couldn't give a f**k

[ukoda]

I use social networks to keep up with what is happening in the lives of my friends and family. I do not use it as news network, I do not use it to find out what is happening in the world. I do not use it as commercial network, I do not do business on it. I do not like or join company pages. If someone has to pay to inject their unwanted stuff in my feed I couldn't give a f**k. I never wanted their crap in their in the first place.

To be honest I do wonder why Facebook is still called a social network as the social aspect really seems to be secondary to the commercial aspects of it.

Re:Couldn't give a f**k

[nnet]

but your friends and family do.

Re:Couldn't give a f**k

[temcat]

That would be fine if FB didn't also hide posts from friends according to some obscure algorithm.

Facebook?

[easyTree]

People still use that thing?

Re:Wave of the future

[nnet]

Everyone is going to have their hand out wanting money for you to do anything. The old days of free content on the Internet are dead. It is 100% commercial content only, to the highest bidder. Sad day for the world.

FTFY.

Have not- will not--- use facebook.

[Maxo-Texas]

It's just a bad scene and you know they are going to screw you over- you just don't know how.

interesting

[mapkinase]

I cannot possibly predict user reaction to this