Facebook expands local news feature

Associated Press

NEW YORK

Facebook is cautiously expanding a feature that shows people local news and information, including missing-person alerts, road closures, crime reports and school announcements.

Called “Today In,” the service shows people information from their towns and cities from such sources as news outlets, government entities and community groups. Facebook launched the service in January with six cities and expanded that to 25, then more. On Wednesday, “Today In” is expanding to 400 cities in the U.S. — and a few others in Australia.

The move comes as Facebook tries to shake off its reputation as a hotbed for misinformation and elections-meddling and rather a place for communities and people to come together and stay informed.

Facebook isn’t paying anyone to include posts, nor can a business or group pay to be listed – at least for now. “Today In” is the brainchild of the Facebook Journalism project, a broad undertaking to boost the news industry, including local news. Of course, Facebook, along with other internet companies, is partly to blame for the decline of local print newspapers.

To find out if “Today In” is available in your city or town, tap the “menu” icon with the three horizontal lines. Then scroll down until you see it. You can choose to see local updates directly in your news feed.

Posts are curated by artificial intelligence (no human involvement). The service aggregates posts from Facebook pages for news organizations, government agencies and community groups. Discussion posts from local Facebook groups may also be included. How Facebook’s algorithms decide what to include is an ongoing process.

For now, “Today In” is tailored only by geography, but this might change. A person with no kids, for example, might not want to see updates from schools.

SAFEGUARDS?

Facebook uses software filters to weed out objectionable content, just as it does on people’s regular news feed. But the filters are turned up for “Today In.” If a good friend posts something a bit objectionable, you are still likely to see it because Facebook takes your friendship into account. But “Today In” posts aren’t coming from your friends, so Facebook is more likely to keep it out.

Still, as the feature expands, Facebook will have to guard against misuse, so that fake news and the other problems with the trending tool don’t crop up.