Facebook Imitates Snapchat Discover to Offer Curated News

Facebook is developing Collections, its own versions of Snapchat Discover.

Part of an ongoing effort to resolve its fake news problem, which only recently company executives have recognized as an issue, Facebook is reportedly trying to develop its own feature similar to that of Snapchat Discover. It is a way to offers user more factual and relevant information from a selection of media partners.

According to two people who are familiar with Facebook’s latest project and attempt to prevent the spread of fake news on the platform, the company is developing a new feature which will showcase various lists of curated content from trusted publishers directly to users’ news feeds.

The function of the new feature which is being called Collections is very similar to that of Snapchat Discover which offers news articles, videos, and other types of content provided by a select number of media partners.

In recent weeks, Facebook has approached a number of media and entertainment companies in order to establish an agreement for various types of content which will be available for Collections. Unfortunately, the company has not disclosed any date for when the feature will be available or at least in a testing phase.

Although this seems like a very good way for Facebook to deal with its fake news problem, at this point there is no certainty whether the new feature will actually be released or not. The company is known for experimenting with new services and often changing its mind about their release.

However, if Facebook is indeed serious with releasing Collections then it could also represent a way for the company to make various publishers even more reliant on the platform to reach their audiences, which is very good for the social network, besides being a way to mitigate the spread of fake news.

Although Facebook has repeatedly stated that it does not want to be an arbiter of truth or even to decide what is newsworthy for all of their users, this seems like an unavoidable measure the company has to take to deal with its fake news. If it will be release, Collections will very likely prove controversial at first, and it will very likely alienate some users who reject’s Facebook media partners.

What do you think about Facebook’s attempts to imitate Snapchat Discover?

Image source: Flickr

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Karen Jackson

Karen Jackson has always been passionate about technology. All the way through high-school she immersed herself in computers and web-design. Her ambitious nature helped her become a pro in Adobe Photoshop only by watching online videos and working with the program herself. This is also the program that she mostly uses in the creation of websites at her work-place. Technological innovation and gadgets that push the boundaries of what we are comfortable with have always fascinated her, so expect to see some weird gadget reviews coming from her.