Facebook sends news media friend requests, but not everyone likes it

Facebook is mulling a change to how it delivers news across its platform, reportedly engaging in talks with outlets including Buzzfeed, National Geographic and the New York Times over the possibility of hosting entire articles in site rather than simply linking out to them.

The social media giant will begin testing the new format over the next few months, The New York Times reported Monday.

Industry watchers say that news websites are keenly aware they are less likely to draw high levels of traffic to their articles without Facebook’s help.

“Facebook has fallen into the role of audience gatekeeper for many publishers,” said Joshua Benton at Nieman Lab, a journalism research institute.

“Facebook isn’t just another platform. It’s dominant in a way no other platform is,” added Benton. With 1.3 billion users, Facebook is the world’s largest social network site.

News sites that don’t play ball with Facebook could get pushed out by those that do, the Times article warned.

And even if the new format falls through, the current situation is not ideal for news sites. Facebook has received criticism for keeping secret algorithms that determine what users see. Journalists say they have to produce less serious content because they "work on Facebook," earning cash strapped news outlets precious clicks.

But by allowing Facebook to post their articles wholesale, news sites may lose crucial access to marketing data about their readers and have to share advertising revenue with Facebook, the Times explained.

“Media companies would essentially be serfs in a kingdom that Facebook owns,” wrote the late David Carr, a Times media industry analyst, in October last year when rumors of the plan first surfaced.

Carr interviewed Chris Cox, Facebook’s chief product officer, about what the social media site intends to do with the new relationship.  

“We are at the very beginning of a conversation and it’s very important that we get this right,” said Cox. 

“Because we play an increasingly important role in how people discover the news that they read every day, we feel a responsibility to work with publishers to come up with as good an experience as we can for consumers. And we want and need that to be a good experience for publishers as well.”