Facebook hopes to wash away the notoriety of spreading fake news with $3 million a year.
Privacy issues are rampant, and false news is rampant, and Facebook should have shot.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Facebook confirmed on Thursday that it will launch a “news tab” this fall that will give reliable sources of news a high-profile position on Facebook. It also provides core features such as news subscriptions (including updates from friends), Messenger and Watch (for video).
Previously, Facebook had contacted a number of news organizations, including The Washington Post and Bloomberg, and hoped to pay them up to $3 million a year to get authorization for news articles.
There is no doubt that this is another card that Facebook has made to contain fake news. The Wall Street Journal quoted sources as saying that news organizations would sign up for three years of trading and could control how the article was displayed on Facebook and whether readers would only receive clips, such as titles and some text, but it is not clear. Is there any media that really agrees with Facebook’s terms?
The launch of this news tag is not without trace. As early as April of this year, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted a video on his Facebook profile, proposing news tags. idea.
In the video, Zuckerberg discusses this topic with Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Axel Springer, one of Germany’s largest digital publishing companies, Matthias Porter The most important point of thinking about this news tag is that there is a “fair share model” where the media can establish a direct relationship with the user and obtain a fair share of revenue. Zuckerberg also expressed his intention to pay license fees to the media, hoping to “help people get reliable news.”
For Facebook, which is deeply involved in fake news, the launch of this news tag is urgently needed. In April of this year, Singapore announced a draft law on “anti-counterfeiting news” under which a person who maliciously disseminates false information will be fined up to S$1 million (approximately $738,000) and Imprisonment for up to 10 years.
The pressure of high fines has forced Facebook to act quickly to limit the spread of fake news.
Facebook tried to put a “controversial label” on content that was reported as fake news in 2017. From the follow-up questions, it seems to be underperforming. February this year, the European Parliament electionIn the first three months, Facebook was accused by the European Union for failing to honor its commitment to crack down on fake news.
As the world’s largest social networking platform, Facebook’s daily active users (DAU) reached 1.59 billion. According to data released by the Pew Research Center, 20% of social network users around the world admit to the habit of reading political news and expressing political positions on Facebook. The information on Facebook will undoubtedly affect users’ views and judgments. Over the past few years, Facebook has been accused of interfering with elections and using various means to crack down on competitors.
For the spread of fake news, Facebook has taken measures many times, but its attitude is always “warm.” In addition to technical reasons, economic difficulties or deeper reasons. Facebook’s second-quarter earnings report showed that total revenue was 16.86 billion US dollars, of which advertising revenue reached 16.624 billion US dollars, accounting for more than 90%.
Facebook allows you to like, comment, and share high “large” ads, and ad revenue is broken down based on a set of metrics. It is conceivable that on social platforms, some emotionally biased fake news may get higher traffic than hard news. Before the EU elections this year, fake news posted on Facebook’s subsequent deleted accounts was viewed more than 500 million times.
High traffic will attract advertisers and bring more advertising revenue to Facebook. Facebook’s warm attitude or fear of smashing fake news, some traffic and advertising value gained by fake news will be lost. BuzzFeed analysts said in a 2016 analysis that if Facebook beats false news, it could lose more than half of its advertising revenue in the second year.
But in the face of a bigger crisis, Facebook should make a clear distinction and act decisively.