FACEBOOK ANNOUNCES A HUGE CHANGE THAT WILL TRANSFORM THE WAY YOU DISCOVER NEWS ON THE SITE

FACEBOOK has announced that it is removing its Trending section, which has featured on the site since 2014.

The feature allows users to discover news topics that are popular across the Facebook community.

But in a blog post announcing its removal, Alex Hardiman, Head of News Products, revealed that Facebook is ditching the feature.

Ms Hardiman wrote: “It was only available in five countries and accounted for less than 1.5% of clicks to news publishers on average. “From research we found that over time people found the product to be less and less useful. “We will remove Trending from Facebook next week and we will also remove products and third-party partner integrations that rely on the Trends API.”

In its place, Facebook is introducing several new ‘news experiences.’

The site is currently testing a ‘Breaking News Label’ with 80 publishers in North America, South America, Europe, India and Australia, who can add ‘a breaking news’ indicator on their posts in the News Feed. Facebook is also testing a dedicated section on the site called Today In, that connects people to the latest breaking news from their local publishers, as well as local officials and organisations.

Finally, Facebook will soon have a dedication section on Facebook Watch in the US, where users can view live coverage, daily news briefings and weekly deep dives.

Ms Hardiman added: “People tell us they want to stay informed about what is happening around them.

“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.”-The

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