A new poll found nearly half of millennials are using Facebook not just for cute raccoon videos but also for news. Angeli Kakade (@angelikakade) has the story.
Facebook received sharp criticism last year after it was reported that the company allegedly suppressed stories from conservative media outlets in its Trending news section.
Now Facebook is testing a redesign that places Trending, which shows links to top news stories, prominently in the News Feed on mobile phones. The Trending section was previously buried in the search box of Facebook’s mobile app.
Placing select news stories in the News Feed would drive significant traffic to publishers if Facebook makes the change broadly available. For now, the test is being run with a small percentage of Facebook users that can opt to hide the section if it’s shown to them.
“While most people will not see Trending in their News Feed as part of this small test, we hope that it will help us learn how to make Trending as useful and informative for people as possible,” Facebook said in a blog post on Wednesday.
