‘Facebook starts Friday in the United States with News tab next to timeline’

Facebook would start Friday with a tab containing news stories. The feature would be released in the United States for the time being and it is still unknown whether Facebook News will also be available in other countries.

The tab would include news stories from 200 American media outlets with which Facebook collaborates, The Washington Post writes. This includes many renowned names and local media. Facebook more or less confirms the plans, but does not give any details yet.

The tab should be separated from the regular timeline of posts from friends, likes, and ads. In this way, media can reach an audience that they partly lost after adapting the algorithm in January 2018, when the social network limited the reach of media to focus the timeline more on other posts.

Some media outlets get paid directly from Facebook for publishing articles for Facebook News. It is unknown how much that is and which media participate in it. Facebook has scheduled an event Friday to announce the service.