The News joins Facebook News launch in UK

It is the first time Facebook’s new section dedicated to personalised news content has been available outside the US.

Facebook News allows users to see curated news stories from major national, local and lifestyle media outlets, and the social media giant says it hopes the new feature will ‘bring people closer to the stories that impact their lives and the community around them’.

How does Facebook News work?

Stories of the day will be selected by editors working for a news aggregator called Upday (but overseen by a Facebook curation team).

These stories will appear alongside other articles algorithmically selected according to a user’s interests.

Facebook says users will be able to personalise the stories they see, as well as choose topics and publishers they want to follow or hide those they are not interested in.

Facebook hopes that by giving news stories a feed of their own, controversial and hard hitting stories can be separated from the “pets-and-family” content which continues to be the biggest draw to the site for many users.

News articles shared by people and pages will continue to appear in Facebook’s default ‘News’ Feed, just as they did previously.

In a blog post announcing the UK launch of the service, Jesper Doub, director of news partnerships in Europe for Facebook, said: ‘The product is a multi-year investment that puts original journalism in front of new audiences as well as providing publishers with more advertising and subscription opportunities to build sustainable businesses for the future.’

How can I access Facebook News?

Facebook News will be accessible through a tab at the top of your Facebook app. To access it, log into the Facebook app on your mobile device, then tap the three horizontal lines symbol.

This will open your menu, where you should be able to find a new section called ‘News’.

You will also be able to access it by typing ‘Facebook News’ into the search bar on your Facebook app and tapping the Facebook News shortcut.

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

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