news

Google and Facebook could have to pay a fee to show content from Australian news organizations. The proposed laws have upset not just the tech giants, but the United States government. The Australian proposals follow a government investigation that ... concludes the two companies have too much control in the media market. It pointed to several regional newspapers closing and advertising revenue falling for publications at the same time Google and Facebook benefit from using news extracts on Google News and in Facebook posts. No Surprise Algorithm Changes Under the laws, Google and Facebook would ... (view more)

Facebook says it will give more priority to posts from users' friends and families rather than content from businesses, news sites and other organizations. But the precise details of the changes remain unclear. The change is to the news feed, which ... is the default view when somebody logs into Facebook. Rather than show all the posts the user's friend have made in chronological order, Facebook attempts to rank them by how important and relevant the user will find them. Facebook says this is necessary because there's too much content for most users to read through in its entirety. It ... (view more)

The proportion of people getting their news from social media sites continues to rise. That's prompted debate about who decides what news is most important. In 2013, the Pew Research Center reported that 52 percent of Twitter users get their news ... from Twitter, with the figure being 47 percent for Facebook users. In a follow-up survey this year, the figure is now 63 percent for both sites. In both surveys, the question defined news as "information about events and issues beyond just your friends and family." (Source: journalism.org ) Between the increasing proportions and the ... (view more)