Facebook considers launching ‘high-quality news tab’

Facebook might be looking to take on Apple again. This time, in the news department. In a conversation about journalism and social media with former journalist and prominent European publisher Mathias Döpfner, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the social network is thinking of having a separate news tab on the site dedicated to news. But it would feature only “high-quality” articles. Users will get access to it for free, while publishers will be paid if their stories are featured. They are mulling over the idea of either directly paying them or giving them a share of the advertising profits.

“We talked about the role quality journalism plays in building informed communities and the principles Facebook should use for building a news tab to surface more high quality news, including the business model and ecosystem to support it,” Zuckerberg says in the video description.

In case you missed the news, Apple launched the Apple News+ subscription service, which gives users access to “high-quality” journalism in a dedicated tab within Apple News. Although the focus of Apple’s service is on magazines. It might seem like Facebook wants a slice of that pie while trying to score some brownie points for its users by offering something similar but offering it for free.

“We’re coming to this from a very different perspective than I think some of the other players in the space who view news as a way that they want to maximize their revenue," Zuckerberg said. "That’s not necessarily the way that we’re thinking about this.”

But this idea isn’t a new one. According to Recode, Facebook has been considering this idea for a while.

Source: Mashable