Facebook Tests Removing Publishers From News Feed—Unless They Pay

Mashable ^ | 10/23/17 | Kerry Flynn

[Enlightened1]

Watch out, publishers: a nightmare scenario for Facebook may soon be a reality. 

 

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 Struhárik, editor and social media manager at Denník 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. 

 

That game could be over, creating a nightmare situation for publishers while Facebook hopes it leads to more advertising revenue.

[Enlightened1]

I bet this eventually backfires because people will simply migrate to other platforms and off of Facebook.

Facebook will be like Myspace 10 years from now. Most kids are on Instagram and Snapchat.

Most political people are on Twitter.

Facebook is slowly fading away.

[Lurkinanloomin]

Abandon Fecebook

Every dollar you give Zuckerberg by using it is used against US.

[grania]

The only thing that could work would be for Zuckerberg to institute a professional, nonbiased news agency of its own, with no profit motive determining what is included. That would mean Zuckerberg would have to spend money instead of make money from the endeavor.