Facebook has announced that the News Feed will now demote news publisher websites that illicitly scrape or republish content from other sources with little or no modification or permission from the original source.
Facebook has been for trying for the past couple of years to strike a balance in your News Feed between surfacing stories that may interest you, against posts from people you care about. This balance has also been having to carefully meter the proliferation of so-called ‘Fake News’, as well as promote sources of quality journalism.
Facebook has also updated a blog post on its site, which originates from May 2017, which lays out their plans to help reduce links to these scam publishers and sites, in which the company stated the following:
Starting today, we’re rolling out an update so people see fewer posts that link out to low-quality sites that predominantly copy and republish content from other sites without providing unique value. We are adjusting our Publisher Guidelines accordingly.
Facebook has also confirmed to TechCrunch, that the new publisher guidelines will warn all news outlets to add more original content or value to the re-posted content or ‘beware the wrath of Facebook itself’.
The all powerful News Feed is live or die for a number of sites in terms of traffic. This reduction of click-bait, reposted or republished content could see significant reduction in these sites and a more pleasant experience in your News Feed.
