Discussion

• @kantrowitz Alex Kantrowitz on x

  Facebook's pursuit of news content can be viewed as a vestige of its war with Twitter. Facebook won that war. Twitter owns news now and Facebook is okay with it. Meanwhile, news content brought Facebook a lot of grief. So it doesn't mind deprioritizing it.

• @danprimack Dan Primack on x

  Don't underestimate the possibility that Facebook is turning on publishers before publishers figure out how to turn on Facebook.

• @nytimesbusiness @nytimesbusiness on x

  “It's important to me that when Max and August grow up they feel like what their father built was good for the world” ~Mark Zuckerberg http://www.nytimes.com/...

• @jeanhodges Jean Hodges on x

  If you really want “meaningful interaction,” maybe Facebook shouldn't be your first choice. http://twitter.com/...

• @caseynewton Casey Newton on x

  So many publishers think they have audiences, when what they really have is traffic. I think we're about to find out who has an audience

• @mosseri Adam Mosseri on x

  @CaseyNewton A key difference between this and the change from 2016 is this is a refocus on meaningful interactions between people - things like friends commenting back and forth about anything, including media - whereas in 2016 we were focused on people seeing more stories from …

• @bethashton Beth Ashton on x

  Does anyone else think this is ironic? If I want ‘meaningful social interactions’ I usually find them far, far away from my phone. http://www.theguardian.com/...

• @davewiner @davewiner on x

  News must create its own distribution. http://www.techmeme.com/...

• @alexhern @alexhern on x

  Morning! Mark Zuckerberg's decided the time has come to destroy all media that isn't Facebook http://www.theguardian.com/...

• @jonrussell Jon Russell on x

  The best approach to using Facebook is to not use it at all http://www.nytimes.com/...

• @wblau Wolfgang Blau on x

  After ‚pivot to video', try ‚pivot to sponsored post'. http://twitter.com/...

• @misterpatches Matt Patches on x

  This is like when Netflix killed video stores, then decided it weren't really into the back-catalogue business. http://twitter.com/...

• @lookner Steve Lookner on x

  Facebook said it is “de-emphasizing content from publishers and brands.” Only one reason to me a business would do that: viewers are fleeing the site http://www.nytimes.com/...

• @jason_kint Jason Kint on x

  One possibility. Pivotal Research is right and this just accelerates Facebook's decline into a Myspace. https://www.usatoday.com/... pic.twitter.com/dEMBcAtMrD

• @jason_kint Jason Kint on x

  My read on the Facebook announcement. Facebook PR dept gave an exclusive to CNN and NYT under embargo for tonight...one that spun their messaging. Digiday gave the middle finger to Facebook's coveted and POWERFUL access and broke the story. Bravo @digiday @bmorrissey @lmoses.

• @jason_kint Jason Kint on x

  If you believe Facebook cares about trust then the way I interpret their announcement is they're jacking up Identification and Reputation value in their algorithm. Both drive up incidence of filter bubbles. Whether good or bad, it's a reality. pic.twitter.com/nY6DDUEdVY

• @jason_kint Jason Kint on x

  Facebook is about 17% of the referral visits for premium publishers, @dcnorg members. @CraigSilverman Interpret this as you see fit. https://twitter.com/...

• @jason_kint Jason Kint on x

  Two more thoughts on Facebook. Facebook is trusted significantly less than brands/apps as a source of information. This distrust also carries over and impacts advertisers on their property according to studies. @CraigSilverman @BuzzFeedNews among others has studied this closely. …

• @jason_kint Jason Kint on x

  In facebook's words to the NY Times -> https://www.nytimes.com/... , so can the people of Bolivia, Guatemala, Slovakia, let me know how this test worked out? Thx. https://www.theguardian.com/ ...

• @mikeisaac @mikeisaac on x

  this will mean a lot of things, but the first folks to feel this pain will almost certainly be publishers who rely on Facebook for distribution. I heard the word “video” quite a few times as something on the death list so good luck on that pivot to video http://www.nytimes.com/..…

• @dskok David Skok on x

  Important thread. I suspect that this will also encourage publishers to spend more $$$ on Sponsored Posts. Making it a win-win for FB and a lose-lose for publishers. https://twitter.com/...

• @byrosenberg Mike Rosenberg on x

  Facebook is going to de-emphasize posts from news organizations. So you'd be more likely to get news from your uncle than a verified source http://www.nytimes.com/...

• @johnbattelle John Battelle on x

  FB stock is down .05%, or nine cents, in after hours trading. Pretty sure that's the shrug FB was looking for.

• @johnbattelle John Battelle on x

  This is from Adam Mosseri, head of News Feed (he's speaking at Shift Forum next month), and includes a post from Mark Z. as well. Facebook is focusing on changing the product goals from engagement on content to engagement with family and friends' post.

• @johnbattelle John Battelle on x

  In the post and in news coverage FB and Zuck say they want to refocus the service to “make people happy” after being on FB. That's a suggestion I made in my piece last week: http://shift.newco.co/...

• @johnbattelle John Battelle on x

  In that piece I posed two scenarios, one of which was “Zuck drops acid and refocuses his product team away from engagement for engagement sake.” So did he?

• @johnbattelle John Battelle on x

  Oh, and I'm so tired of “we've studied this trend carefully by looking at the academic research and doing our own research with leading experts at universities.” What research? With whom? Is it peer reviewed? Open it up!

• @johnbattelle John Battelle on x

  The NewsFeed product team isn't the ad model product team, and it's the ad model that drives the toxicity at its core. However, this is still a significant move.

• @johnbattelle John Battelle on x

  No. But it is a pretty sweet drag on a joint.

• @johnbattelle John Battelle on x

  THREAD: On Facebook. So lots of folks asking me about Facebook's news today. I've read what I can, and here's my initial take, in a thread. First, here's the news from FB: http://newsroom.fb.com/...

• @petersterne Peter Sterne on x

  Facebook has not done anything to actually help the media industry. They have taken steps to help media organizations *adapt to Facebook* and better use the platform. That sort of training is often mistaken for philanthropy in Silicon Valley, but it's not. It's just onboarding.

• @caseynewton Casey Newton on x

  1. Facebook has said a version of this before, and introduced similar changes before 2. Hard to guess the true impact from this post 3. Obvious loser: video publishers that just put captions over stock footage http://twitter.com/...

• @paul_shetler Paul Shetler on x

  Facebook is cracking down on content creators and publishers big time. Lesson: hold onto your own platforms. FB is too unstable to build a business on. Will be interesting to see the response from publishers. http://www.facebook.com/...

• @juddlegum Judd Legum on x

  1. It's interesting that Facebook's definition of being a positive force in the world is making people “feel positive, rather than negative, after visiting.” This seems very wrong. http://www.nytimes.com/...

• @sanasaeed Sana Saeed on x

  This has little to do with “meaningful interaction” and more with centralizing FB's position as a video content provider/creator and, eventually, a news hub. http://twitter.com/...

• @craigsilverman Craig Silverman on x

  The language coming out of top FB execs tonight about these changes is more blunt and straightforward than you usually get. See this from the head of News Feed. He says it means less reach overall for pages, full stop. http://newsroom.fb.com/... http://twitter.com/...

• @nycjim Jim Roberts on x

  Zuckerberg on changes to News Feed: “I expect the time people spend on Facebook and some measures of engagement will go down. But I also expect the time you do spend on Facebook will be more valuable.” http://www.facebook.com/...

• @zeynep Zeynep Tufekci on x

  “We will predict which posts you might want to interact with your friends about, and show these posts higher in feed.” Interact=comment, react, share. 1-Testament to FB algorithm's power. 2-"Predict"=inevitable feedback loop. 3-Why would interaction bring ppl together? Big jump. …

• @mathewi Mathew Ingram on x

  How about “pivot to paid reach” https://twitter.com/...

• @carnage4life Dare Obasanjo on x

  The other obvious part of the announcement is that posts from brands will show up less unless they buy ads. I love that their ongoing squeezing out of brands for advertising is painted as user-centric.

• @mathewi Mathew Ingram on x

  The hilarious part of all this is lots of publishers think they won't be affected because they're so “high quality” or “reputable,” and many of them are going to find out they are completely wrong http://twitter.com/...

• @alkapdc Alex Kaplan on x

  Maybe I'm mistaken, but Facebook highlighting more in the News Feed posts from family and family rather than media companies would seem to increase the likelihood that people see fake news. https://www.nytimes.com/...

• @rsingel Ryan Singel on x

  It's a good thing the publishing industry didn't have spent the last 5 years chasing short-term FB traffic and instead thought long term by building owned distribution channels, figuring out personalization and focussing on loyal readers rather than drive-by ones https://twitter.…

• @claire_phipps Claire Phipps on x

  Mark Zuckerberg wants Facebook to show us fewer articles and videos because all we do is read or watch them (which is the actual point of articles and videos) https://www.nytimes.com/... pic.twitter.com/J0P0RE9lv5

• @lukeoneil47 Luke O'Neil on x

  This sort of thing could put me out of business but the sooner publications divorce themselves from chasing Facebook with garbage and return to a pay for considered quality model the better http://www.nytimes.com/...

• @jason_kint Jason Kint on x

  Interesting. I look forward to seeing details of this Facebook announcement. FB drives 17% of visits to high-reputation (@dcnorg) publishers and that should only go up if Facebook actually cares about trusted news and entertainment. https://digiday.com/...

• @bmorrissey Brian Morrissey on x

  Now NYT, FT and WSJ who played PR footsie with Fb are out with the shiny, happy Fb version of this being a GREAT thing. NYT got Zuck! Lucia spoke to big publishers who don't see it that way. http://twitter.com/...

• @mathewi Mathew Ingram on x

  This makes it sound as though one of the factors Facebook will consider when highlighting news in the feed is whether an outlet has a paywall http://www.wsj.com/... via @WSJ