BAD NEWS FOR NEWSROOMS – BUT IS THERE A SILVER LINING?
With the move to further reduce the priority of news content in social media, there are longer-term ramifications for both the news industry and consumers, said those interviewed.
Some of them warned that the changes to the social media landscape could herald a poorer quality of news.
Ms Henson noted that social media users are not ready to read beyond the news headlines and want to be informed immediately about what is happening.
As such, newsrooms are focused on catching consumers’ attention, at the expense of doing their basic job of journalism which is to get, attribute and verify information before it is published or broadcast.
“Whenever (news organisations) say things like we must digitalise, or learn to engage readers, it seems like our focus is on trying to get the eyeballs, rather than give the eyeballs something to read,” said Ms Henson.
However, she said that one possible silver lining to social media algorithms reducing their emphasis on news is that newsrooms could be spurred to find ways to draw audiences to their websites directly by offering better quality content, rather than rely on social media platforms for referral traffic.
In the case of news consumers, the observers highlighted the risk of society becoming less informed if they continue to rely on social media for their news.
Dr Wu of NUS said that if algorithm changes reducing the emphasis on news are not communicated properly to audiences, there is the risk of them just relying on social media for their daily news intake, under the mistaken belief that it is comprehensive.
“This will create citizens who are poorly informed about important issues of the day and be detrimental to the proper functioning of society in the long run,” she said.
“Meaningful participation in political and social life cannot be based on the consumption of just entertainment-related news.”
On the other hand, if consumers are aware that social media platforms are downplaying news over other types of content, this could encourage audiences to turn to established and verified news sources to obtain their information, Dr Wu added. This would be a positive development as it contributes to a more informed citizenry and lessens the spread of disinformation.
News outlets may also see increased traffic on their websites or apps as people realise that it is the only and best way for them to access the news from established sources.
Consequently, having more audiences would mean more advertising revenue and more resources for news organisations to produce good quality news content, over “click-worthy and potentially viral” stories, said Dr Wu.
Ms Henson said that she hoped news consumers will eventually get tired of “all the fluff” coming out of social media over the years, and they will hanker for news that is objective and moderate.
She noted how there were probably more people reading the news during the COVID-19 pandemic when they realised the relevance of news to their lives.
“There could be a time where people get so fed up with frivolity (on social media) that they do want to read something deeper, longer and better,” she said.
WHAT SOME SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS SAY
In response to TODAY’s queries, Facebook’s parent company Meta said that news discovery is a “small part” of the Facebook experience for the majority of its users.
“In fact, news article links only make up about 4 per cent of what people see in Feed and people tell us they don’t want political content to take over their experience,” said a Meta spokesperson.
The spokesperson added that Facebook renamed its “News Feed” to “Feed” in February to “better reflect the diverse types of content people see and engage with” on the feed.
“We have learned from the data that news and links to news content are not the reason the vast majority of people come to Facebook, and as a business we can’t over-invest in areas that don’t align most with user preferences,” said the spokesperson.
YouTube referred TODAY to its blog by Mr Cristos Goodrow, its vice-president of engineering, which outlines how the platform approaches recommended videos.
Mr Goodrow said that the platform’s recommendation system does not connect viewers to content through their social network, but instead predicts the videos that a user wants to watch.
He noted that over the years, a growing number of viewers have turned to YouTube for news and information. While some viewers have indicated that they are very satisfied with videos perpetuating disinformation – such as those claiming that the Earth is flat – this does not mean that YouTube wants to recommend low-quality content.
As such, YouTube connects viewers to “high-quality information and minimise the chances they’ll see problematic content”, he said.
In doing so, YouTube determines the authoritativeness of a video based on several factors including its topic, the reputation of the speaker in the video, and the content.
“The higher the score, the more the video is promoted when it comes to news and information content,” said Mr Goodrow on the blog.
While TikTok did not respond to TODAY’s queries, its community guidelines specify that its mission is to “inspire creativity and bring joy”.
Among the content banned by TikTok are those that are sexually explicit or depict weapons and drugs, as well as violent or graphic deaths and accidents.
It may reduce the discoverability of some content, or make videos ineligible for recommendation on its “For You” feed, to “maintain the trust and safety of its viewers”.
However, TikTok’s guidelines note that some content that would otherwise be removed under its guidelines may be in the public interest. For such content, exceptions may be allowed, such as if the video is educational, artistic or enables individual expression on a topic of social importance.
In its content guidelines circulated to publishers, TikTok specifies that news organisations should include elements such as their logo and banners in their videos, so as to identify the content as news.
TikTok also requires violent or graphic content, such as road accidents or physical violence, to be blurred out. In content depicting criminal activity or firearms, newsrooms, where applicable, have to also convey that such incidents are illegal and should be condemned.