Facebook to hand-pick publishers’ content for new News service personalization option

Company announces test to include stories from the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post

Facebook on Friday continued with its ongoing efforts to give its users more control over what they see on the social network by launching Facebook News, a new option that will include more-personalized selection of content from some of the nation’s best-known news outlets.

Facebook said the new service will initially be rolled out as a test that will be seen by a number of its users. Content will initially come from sources such as the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today and Business Insider. Facebook said the stories included in the new News tab will be selected by a team of journalists working for Facebook.

The company didn’t include any Bay Area publications as content providers for its News service, nor did it say when the service might be offered to all of Facebook’s users in the U.S. Facebook also didn’t disclose any terms of licensing fees it is paying news publishers to carry their content on Facebook News.

“People want and benefit from personalized experiences on Facebook, but we know there is reporting that transcends individual experience. We want to support both,” said Campbell Brown, Facebook’s vice president of global news partnerships, and Mona Sarantakos, product manager for Facebook News, in a company statement.

Facebook said the stories selected for is News service “will have editorial independence

and will select stories based on publicly available guidelines” that the company said

can be found at facebook. com/news.

The new News service comes as Facebook, and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, have been on a public campaign of openness about the company’s commitment

to free speech and expression on the social network. Last week, Zuckerberg laid out his philosophy about allowing various voices their place to speak on Facebook during a speech at Georgetown University

that included not putting restraints on political ads, even if those ads include comments that can’t be verified as true.