Facebook to prioritize 'high quality', trustworthy news, Zuckerberg says Facebook chief to change news feed to combat ‘sensationalism’ ‘There’s too much misinformation and polarization in the world’

Executives Inline image 1 Mark Zuckerberg CEO, Chairperson, Founder Inline image 2 Sheryl Sandberg COO Inline image 3 David Wehner CFO Inline image 4 Mike Schroepfer CTO Inline image 5 Chris Cox Chief product officer Facebook will begin to prioritize “trustworthy” news outlets on its stream of social media posts as it works to combat “sensationalism” and “misinformation”, its chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, said on Friday. The company, which has more than 2 billion monthly users, said it would use surveys to determine rankings on how trustworthy news outlets are. Zuckerberg outlined the shakeup in a post on Facebook, saying that starting next week the news feed, the company’s centerpiece product, would prioritize “high quality news” over less trusted sources. “There’s too much sensationalism, misinformation and polarization in the world today,” Zuckerberg wrote. I was Mark Zuckerberg's mentor. Today I would tell him: your users are in peril Roger McNamee Read more “Social media enables people to spread information faster than ever before, and if we don’t specifically tackle these problems, then we end up amplifying them,” he wrote. At the same time, Zuckerberg said the amount of news overall on Facebook would shrink to roughly 4% of the content on the news feed from 5% currently. Facebook has had a stormy relationship with news organizations, especially those with strong political leanings. In 2016, Republican lawmakers expressed concern that Facebook was suppressing news stories of interest to conservative readers. Last week, Zuckerberg said the company would change the way it filters posts and videos on the news feed to prioritize what friends and family share. Since you’re here … … we have a small favour to ask. More people are reading the Guardian than ever but advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. And unlike many news organisations, we haven’t put up a paywall – we want to keep our journalism as open as we can. So you can see why we need to ask for your help. The Guardian’s independent, investigative journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce. But we do it because we believe our perspective matters – because it might well be your perspective, too. I appreciate there not being a paywall: it is more democratic for the media to be available for all and not a commodity to be purchased by a few. I’m happy to make a contribution so others with less means still have access to information. Thomasine F-R. If everyone who reads our reporting, who likes it, helps fund it, our future would be much more secure. For as little as £1, you can support the Guardian – and it only takes a minute. Thank you. Become a supporter