Facebook extends lead as news gateway

washington — Facebook has become an important news source for close to half of American adults, a study showed amid increased scrutiny over the social network’s gateway role.

The Pew Research Centre survey showed 62 per cent of US adults get news on social media, and 18 per cent do so often.

That shows a growing role for Facebook and other social networks as a news source. In 2012, based on a slightly different question, 49 per cent of American adults reported seeing news on social media, Pew said.

According to the survey, 66 per cent of Facebook users get news on the site, as did 59 per cent of Twitter users and seven of 10 users of Reddit.

Because Facebook reaches some two-thirds of US adults, the survey indicates that 44 per cent of the overall population gets at least some news through the leading social network.

The survey comes with Facebook defending itself against allegations that it suppressed some conservative news content in its “trending” topics.

Last week, Facebook said was unable to substantiate any specific accusations of bias, but announced it was updating guidelines to be clearer that content decisions may not be based on politics or ideology.

The news team will be subject to more oversight and controls, and Facebook will no longer rely on lists of external websites and news outlets to assess the importance of topics in stories. —