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News > Latin America

Facebook Quits the Split: Tampered With Small Media Traffic

  • A visitor looks at portraits of Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg at solo exhibition

    A visitor looks at portraits of Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg at solo exhibition "The Face of Facebook" by Chinese artist Zhu Jia at a gallery in Singapore, October 30, 2013. | Photo: Reuters

Published 5 March 2018
Opinion

Facebook says it won’t split its feeds in two after protests over an additional "explore" feed convince the company to stay with its single "news" reel. 

Facebook says it won’t split itself in two after protests over an additional "explore" feed convince the company to stay with its single "news." 

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Last October the California-based social media company implemented a new Facebook platform in Bolivia, Cambodia, Guatemala, Serbia, Slovakia and Sri Lanka which split users feed in two - one dedicated to posts from their friends and family; another, an "explore" feed showed posts from news outlets and businesses they had previously "liked."  

Facebook, with a worth totaling $407.3 Billion in 2017, said users in the test countries complained that information from smaller news agencies almost immediately disappeared from their feeds, and they were bombarded with stories from more high revenue media outlets.

"People told us they were less satisfied with the posts they were seeing, and having two separate feeds didn't actually help them connect more with friends and family," said Adam Mosseri, head of the News Feed at Facebook.

Mosseri said the company had also "received feedback that we made it harder for people in the test countries to access important information and that we didn't communicate the test clearly."

"I hope Facebook will have more interest in what is happening inside its test countries," Slovakian journalist Filip Struharik in a tweet. Struharik had been critical of the change even prior to its rollout.

A company spokesperson said it would revise how it rolls out test products in the future.

In Cambodia, media outlets were glad Facebook ended the test.

Facebook has become a critical news platform in the country after Prime Minister Hun Sen shut down some smaller news agencies that were critical of his policies.

"Facebook users in Cambodia will be able to receive information again after traditional and independent media were forced to shut down," said Nop Vy, editor in chief at the Voice of Democracy radio station. The alternative station suffered a 30 to 40 percent decline in viewers during the temporary test.

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