In 2019, Meta, formerly Facebook, launched Facebook News, a tab on its social network entirely devoted to general and local news. Initially available only in the United States, the service is slowly spreading around the world, reaching France in early 2022. At the time, Meta was clearly showing its desire to make Facebook the heart of its activities. But things have changed a lot since then.
While most of the articles shared in the News Feed are selected by algorithms, some of them stand out in the relevant regions. These are selected by a dedicated team currently led by a content curation agency located directly in the respective country. However, that is about to change very soon, as Meta will not renew its contracts with these agencies.
Meta will replace people with algorithms in Facebook News
The information comes to us from the British media Press Gazette, which reported that its contract with Upday, the agency that manages curation in the UK, will expire in 2023 and will not be extended. From now on, the firm’s algorithms will definitely get in the way of the work done by the human workforce. Meta later officially confirmed the issue and added that this Channel-wide change will also impact the rest of Europe.
It is still difficult to say when the transition will occur in our regions, but that will certainly be the case once the contracts in force expire. We can already count on 2024 at the latest. A decision that sadly reflects the layoffs of Meta’s 60 employees, which were managed by an artificial intelligence at the time. “We are constantly evaluating our global curation partnerships based on user and product needs,” the company said.
Source : Press Newspaper
