Facebook has finally decided that the best way to deliver news is to act like a newspaper

It is also an interesting, tacit admission from Facebook: The best way for Facebook to act like a newspaper, it turns out, is for Facebook to actually behave like a newspaper.

Facebook isnt changing its main News Feed an almost-anything-goes jumble of dog pictures, rants from your uncle, and whatever news stories you and your friends want to share with each other. That one is run almost entirely by Facebook software, powered by free contributions from the platforms 2 billion-plus users, and from people who want to reach them.

That feed will still have plenty of fake and dubiously sourced news stories, which Facebook is still trying to police using software and third-party fact-checkers.

It will rely on a team of journalists, employed by Facebook, who will highlight stories from other, human-run news organizations, that Facebook is vouching for.

This is a grudging and significant switch for Facebook, which until now has tried for ideological, business, and legal reasons to argue that the best way to deliver what its users want is to simply stand aside and let those users, plus algorithms, figure it out for themselves.

There were many advantages to this posture: It let Facebook build a globally dominant business without having to pay for your dog picture, or your uncles rants, or stories from the New York Times.

And its an admission that exercising judgement, and using human beings with expertise to make those judgements, can be a better model than handing that power over to algorithms and anyone with an internet connection.

Original article