BAD NEWS FOR NEWSROOMS – BUT IS THERE A SILVER LINING?

According to those surveyed, the decision to further deprioritize news content in social media will have longer-term consequences, both for the news industry and for consumers.

Some of them warned that changes in the social media landscape could herald lower quality information.

Ms. Henson noted that social media users are not willing to read beyond the headlines and want to be informed immediately about what is happening.

As such, newsrooms strive to attract consumers’ attention, to the detriment of their basic journalism job of obtaining, attributing and verifying information before it is published or broadcast.

“Whenever (news outlets) say things like we need to digitize or learn to engage readers, it seems like our goal is to try to attract eyes, rather than give them something to read,” Ms. Henson said.

However, she said one possible benefit of social media algorithms reducing the focus on news is that newsrooms could be incentivized to find ways to drive audiences directly to their websites by offering higher quality content, rather than relying on social media platforms for referral traffic. .

In the case of news consumers, observers have highlighted the risk that society will become less informed if they continue to rely on social media for information.

NUS’ Dr Wu said that if algorithm changes reducing the emphasis on information are not communicated properly to the public, there is the risk that the public will rely solely on social media for their daily intake of information, wrongly believing that it is complete.

“This will create citizens who are poorly informed on the important issues of the day and will harm the smooth functioning of society in the long term,” she said.

“Meaningful participation in political and social life cannot be based solely on the consumption of entertainment-related information.”

On the other hand, if consumers are aware that social media platforms downplay news compared to other types of content, this could encourage audiences to turn to established, verified news sources for their information, Dr. Wu added. This would be a positive development as it would help make citizens more informed and reduce the spread of misinformation.

Media outlets may also see an increase in traffic to their websites or apps, as people realize that this is the only and best way for them to access information from established sources.

Therefore, having more audience would mean more advertising revenue and more resources for news agencies to produce good quality news content, on “click-worthy and potentially viral” stories, said Dr. Wu.

Ms Henson said she hoped news consumers would eventually tire of “all the falsifications” coming from social media over the years and would desire objective, moderate news.

She pointed out that there were probably more people reading the news during the COVID-19 pandemic when they became aware of the importance of the news in their lives.

“There might come a time when people get so fed up with the frivolity (on social media) that they want to read something deeper, longer and better,” she said.

WHAT SOME SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS SAY

In response to questions from TODAY, Facebook parent company Meta said news discovery is only a “small part” of the Facebook experience for the majority of its users.

“In fact, links to news articles only make up about 4% of what people see in Feed and people tell us they don’t want political content to take over their experience,” said a Meta spokesperson.

The spokesperson added that Facebook renamed its “News Feed” to “Feed” in February to “better reflect the diverse types of content people see and interact with” on the Feed.

“We learned from the data that news and links to news content are not the reason the vast majority of people come to Facebook, and as a company we cannot overinvest in areas that do not correspond most to user preferences. “, said the spokesperson.

YouTube TODAY referenced its blog from Mr. Cristos Goodrow, its VP of Engineering, which describes how the platform approaches recommended videos.

Mr. Goodrow said the platform’s recommendation system does not connect viewers to content through their social network, but rather predicts which videos a user wants to watch.

He noted that over the years, an increasing number of viewers have turned to YouTube for news and information. While some viewers indicated they were very happy with videos perpetuating misinformation – like those claiming the Earth is flat – that doesn’t mean YouTube wants to recommend low-quality content.

As such, YouTube connects viewers to “high-quality information and minimizes the chances of them seeing problematic content,” he said.

In doing so, YouTube determines the authority of a video based on several factors, including its topic, the reputation of the speaker in the video, and the content.

“The higher the score, the more the video is promoted in terms of news and information content,” Goodrow said on the blog.

Although TikTok did not respond to TODAY’s queries, its community guidelines state that its mission is to “inspire creativity and bring joy.”

Content banned by TikTok includes that which is sexually explicit or depicts weapons and drugs, as well as violent or graphic deaths and accidents.

It may reduce the visibility of certain content or make videos ineligible for recommendation on its “For You” feed, in order to “maintain the trust and safety of its viewers.”

However, TikTok’s guidelines note that some content that would otherwise be removed under these guidelines may be in the public interest. For such content, exceptions may be allowed, for example if the video is educational, artistic or allows for individual expression on a topic of social importance.

In its content guidelines distributed to publishers, TikTok specifies that news organizations must include elements such as their logo and banners in their videos, in order to identify the content as news.

TikTok also requires that violent or graphic content, such as traffic accidents or physical violence, be blurred. In content depicting criminal activity or firearms, editorial staff, where applicable, must also state that such incidents are illegal and should be condemned.