Click to Skip Ad
Closing in...

Facebook is going to further destroy your timeline with its own version of cable news

Published Jun 1st, 2018 10:34PM EDT
Facebook Watch live news cable with CNN, Fox
Image: Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP/REX/Shutterstock

If you buy through a BGR link, we may earn an affiliate commission, helping support our expert product labs.

Not content with destroying the web traffic of publishers and public confidence in, uh, everything, it seems like Facebook is now coming for cable news as well. The company announced today that it’s bringing a News Video section to Facebook Watch, the video service that no one cares about, which will let users view “live coverage, daily news briefings and weekly deep dives that are exclusive to Watch.”

According to reports published yesterday, the content will be produced by partners including Fox News and CNN, but will be financed by Facebook. Although Facebook has dabbled heavily in the news business before, directly financing exclusive news programming is a major increase in the company’s direct participation in the news cycle.

“People tell us they want to stay informed about what is happening around them,” said Alex Hardiman, head of Facebook’s news division. “We are committed to ensuring the news that people see on Facebook is high quality, and we’re investing in ways to better draw attention to breaking news when it matters most.”

In addition to Facebook Watch, the company is also killing off its Trending section, which has been the cause of real controversey over its curation in the past. A new section called Today In is launching instead, which “connects people to the latest breaking and important news from local publishers in their city, as well as updates from local officials and organizations.”
Chris Mills
Chris Mills News Editor

Chris Mills has been a news editor and writer for over 15 years, starting at Future Publishing, Gawker Media, and then BGR. He studied at McGill University in Quebec, Canada.