Live data from Hacker News

Facebook to Invest $300m in Supporting Local News

facebook.com

91–100 of 100 posts

Re: Facebook to Invest $300m in Supporting Local News

#91
post #29

Best win-win outcome IMO would be for Facebook to pay itself this $300M as an incentive to stay completely out of news, local and otherwise.

prevent people from posting news articles? you know that facebook doesnt post or promote news itself... right?

Re: Facebook to Invest $300m in Supporting Local News

#92
post #17

As someone who has been running a local newspaper for the last four years in a town of about 11 thousand people, getting money or support from Facebook would feel like someone robbing you and then being so kind as to split the money with you. My trust in them is exactly zero. They have practically monopolized news distribution, helped to destroy the business model of an important social service and now they would lik…

Monopolized news distribution? How so? Aren't there many sites which provide news such as reddit, Twitter, Hacker News ;) etc?

Re: Facebook to Invest $300m in Supporting Local News

#93
post #17

As someone who has been running a local newspaper for the last four years in a town of about 11 thousand people, getting money or support from Facebook would feel like someone robbing you and then being so kind as to split the money with you. My trust in them is exactly zero. They have practically monopolized news distribution, helped to destroy the business model of an important social service and now they would lik…

I also run a local news outlet, digital-only though and not print. Facebook is both the reason for our success and also the source of our biggest pain. They almost put us out of business within the last year. For how they're helping, it's really hard to get people to care about websites. People as a whole just don't care. They don't want to visit your website. So we publish our stories and share them to Facebook. We…

Why did they shut off the API? Any reason given?

Re: Facebook to Invest $300m in Supporting Local News

#94
post #92
post #17

As someone who has been running a local newspaper for the last four years in a town of about 11 thousand people, getting money or support from Facebook would feel like someone robbing you and then being so kind as to split the money with you. My trust in them is exactly zero. They have practically monopolized news distribution, helped to destroy the business model of an important social service and now they would lik…

Monopolized news distribution? How so? Aren't there many sites which provide news such as reddit, Twitter, Hacker News ;) etc?

Can’t speak for others, but we would have no chance distributing our content digitally on Twitter or Hacker News. Or even RSS and mailing lists. We strive to find other ways, but sharing on Facebook and paying for eyeballs seems to be the only realistic option at the moment.

Re: Facebook to Invest $300m in Supporting Local News

#95
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also run a local news outlet, digital-only though and not print. Facebook is both the reason for our success and also the source of our biggest pain. They almost put us out of business within the last year. For how they're helping, it's really hard to get people to care about websites. People as a whole just don't care. They don't want to visit your website. So we publish our stories and share them to Facebook. We…

Why did they shut off the API? Any reason given?

It was just the catch-all "we're reducing the personal data visible through our API". Nothing specific to the events API. Which would make sense if it restricted the ability to see how many people were going and who had RSVP'd, but they shut off everything.

When I asked Facebook support, they gave me two options: direct users to the Facebook Local app (bypassing my site), or have every business I wanted to collect event data from log into my site and store their user access token, and that would give me permission to collect their events. This token needs to be re-upped every so often, so now I'm asking hundreds of people to log into my site every month just to keep their events populating. Most of the business owners can barely use Facebook to begin with, it's just a non-starter.

Re: Facebook to Invest $300m in Supporting Local News

#96
post #94
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monopolized news distribution? How so? Aren't there many sites which provide news such as reddit, Twitter, Hacker News ;) etc?

Can’t speak for others, but we would have no chance distributing our content digitally on Twitter or Hacker News. Or even RSS and mailing lists. We strive to find other ways, but sharing on Facebook and paying for eyeballs seems to be the only realistic option at the moment.

Why's there no chance? Aren't there any strategies out there that can be tried out?

Re: Facebook to Invest $300m in Supporting Local News

#97
post #96
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can’t speak for others, but we would have no chance distributing our content digitally on Twitter or Hacker News. Or even RSS and mailing lists. We strive to find other ways, but sharing on Facebook and paying for eyeballs seems to be the only realistic option at the moment.

Why's there no chance? Aren't there any strategies out there that can be tried out?

I guess it’s mostly a question of social networks working too well for people to care about other channels.

Re: Facebook to Invest $300m in Supporting Local News

#98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"what kind of news people want to see" discussions takes place in news rooms, editing rooms, and journalism schools around the world. There isn't some all-encompassing "journalism" cabal who are only dedicated to reporting all the news that ever happens without bias. This only exists in the minds of people who've never seen news and reporting get made. These decisions are made every day by the editors-in-chief and pu…

I think we all know the discussions going on at FB HQ about 'what people want to see' are far, far removed from the journalistic decisions that get made in a quality news room. Throwing in Murdoch and Fox News isn't helping your argument either. I'd put Murdoch up there as one of the key people who have actively sought to abuse journalism for political favour and personal gain. I just don't see how that is right.

[deleted]

Re: Facebook to Invest $300m in Supporting Local News

#99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"what kind of news people want to see" discussions takes place in news rooms, editing rooms, and journalism schools around the world. There isn't some all-encompassing "journalism" cabal who are only dedicated to reporting all the news that ever happens without bias. This only exists in the minds of people who've never seen news and reporting get made. These decisions are made every day by the editors-in-chief and pu…

Proper news sources don't sell the news. They sell trust, my trust in them. BBC.co.uk/news isn't my first bookmark on every device because they entertain me. It is there because I trust that anything appearing on that website has been deemed important by a group of professionals. I don't want to read popular news. I certainly do not trust Facebook/Google/Apple to curate anything beyond funny cat vids. BBC does includ…

Well, proper news sources should be something like regulated public "utilities" (assuming sane democratic/journalistic standards).

It's the same for me with tagesschau.de and Deutschlandfunk.

Post reply on HN