You can't blame newspapers for speaking out against Facebook's recent algorithm shift. Especially those that put all their digital eggs into this particular basket.
But I don't think the 'fake news' argument prevails. Not if Facebook puts in place a fast growing army of moderators trained to seek out deliberate lies, especially those promoted by government sponsored trolls or extreme religious and political movements.
So this story is far from over. I expect Facebook and other social channels to suffer severe reputational damage once the investigation into Russian interference into the US 2016 Presidential Election is published.
Whether that leads to and anti-trust assault a la Standard Oil one hundred years ago is another matter. But a Facebook break up 2020? Ladies and gentlemen, please place your bets.
“In effectively banning professional journalism from its pages in favour of personal content and opening space for ‘fake news’ to proliferate, Facebook became inhospitable terrain for those who want to offer quality content like ours,” he said. Dávila said the paper’s move reflected “the declining importance of Facebook to our readers”, but the algorithm change had been the deciding factor, he added.
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