Facebook Tests Giving Users A More Balanced News Diet

Facebook said it launched a small test affecting 'Related Articles' on Tuesday in an effort to show users broader perspectives and information on the news. (Courtesy of Facebook)

Three months after Facebook announced its Journalism Project to curb fake news on its social network and promote news literacy among the public, the company is testing a new way to diversify users' news sources.

Starting on Tuesday, Facebook will test proactively serving a small number of U.S. iPhone and Android users a series of "Related Articles" below a widely-discussed news story in users' feed. 

 While Facebook has been serving "Related Articles" to users after they have read an article since 2013, this test marks the first time the company is suggesting other stories on a popular news topic before the user has read any stories on that subject on Facebook. The test is primarily targeted at news stories as opposed to other types of content and is expected to affect a range of categories, such as politics, sports, science and current events, according to a Facebook spokeswoman. The feature is being observed and shaped by Facebook's Journalism Project, and the company has been seeking feedback from publishers and users, the spokeswoman said.

Facebook said in a blog post on Tuesday that the test is intended to "provide people easier access to additional perspectives and information." The new proactively recommended articles will appear in news feed in a unit beneath the link of the related story. For example, if a significant number of Facebook users are discussing an article about a new medical finding, Facebook may now also show some users several stories below the popular story by different publishers on the same medical topic. For political news topics, the test is intended to show users articles from a range of publishers representing somewhat different perspectives in order to offer people a more complete picture. Facebook is not planning, however, to recommend users political articles representing views that are completely opposite to what the user holds, a Facebook spokeswoman said, based on research that suggests that readers aren't receptive to these stories.

Articles will be selected to receive the new proactively served "Related" stories unit based on how much engagement that article is receiving on Facebook, regardless of its news category, a spokeswoman said. If a third-party fact checker has written about a topic, stories by those writers might also be surfaced in the tests.   Facebook does not expect publishers' Pages to see any significant changes in their reach, the company said.

"One of our main goals is to support an informed community on Facebook," the company said in a blog post. "This includes helping people have conversations about the news, and giving people more ways to see a more complete picture of a story or topic."

Public debate has swirled since November over whether misinformation on the social network could have affected the outcome of the U.S. election. Facebook said Tuesday's test is one of many ways it is trying to improve the quality of users' news experience. The company said it will use its findings from the test to inform the design of its app for its entire 1.9-billion person user base.

After initially playing down the social network's role in enabling the distribution of fake and hoax content, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced a series of steps the company is making to contain the spread of false stories. Perhaps most notably, Zuckerberg said in mid-December that articles on Facebook which are reported enough times by the community or flagged through other signals will now be examined by a group of third-party fact checking organizations in Poynter's International Fact Checking Network. Facebook has also been offering tutorials within the social network to help users learn how to identify false news.