Facebook’s much-anticipated News tab is slowly rolling out – Here’s what it looks like

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Facebook started testing out its dedicated News tab in the mobile app today, with a few hundred thousand users in the United States. This tab will feature publications like The Wall Street Journal, BuzzFeed, and USA Today, and another 200 news outlets from around the country.

Is this the answer to Facebook’s Fake News issues? Probably not, but let’s see how this plays out.

Facebook is slowly rolling out a dedicated News tab in its mobile app to US users

A few hundred thousand Facebook users in the United States were greeted to a new tab in their mobile app today, one for curated News. The stories featured in this tab are from verified publishers, who have to sign on to the program voluntarily. Does that mean that there will finally be a section of Facebook free of fake news? If so, Hallelujah.

Here’s more of what we know: 

• Around 200 publishers are signed on to the new News tab, Facebook will be paying each of these a varying amount for their content.
• It will be curated by a team of editors, in a similar manner as Apple News uses. This team is independent and “free from editorial intervention by anyone at the company.”
• When you open the tab, you’ll be greeted by “Today’s Stories,” the top events of the day. It’ll also learn your preferences over time, so your Newsfeed will personalize itself.

This is a bold pivot from Facebook’s last stance when it started deranking news articles in favor of more organic content. Will it work? That answer isn’t simple. Still, with Facebook paying some (or most?) of the publishers this time around, it has a better chance at working.

Have any thoughts on this? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

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Joe Rice-Jones

Maker, meme-r, and unabashed geek with nearly half a decade of blogging experience at KnowTechie, SlashGear and XDA Developers. If it runs on electricity (or even if it doesn't), Joe probably has one around his office somewhere, with particular focus in gadgetry and handheld gaming. Shoot him an email at joe@knowtechie.com.