The Listening Post

Facebook’s promise: A news feed with less news

Will Facebook’s reforms deal with hate speech, fake news and the need for moderation? Plus, South Korea’s ‘Defector TV’.

On The Listening Post this week: Will Facebook’s news feed reforms deal with hate speech, fake news and the need for moderation? Plus, a uniquely South Korean media phenomenon: “Defector TV”.

Less news in the news feed: Behind the Facebook reform

Having transformed the way billions of people consume and share news stories online, Facebook has announced it is taking a big chunk of the news out of its news feed and, in doing so, retreating from a crucial part of its business.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg says he’s doing right by the people who matter most to him, his users, but many in the media are not buying it.

So what will the social media giant’s new policy mean for news organisations and news consumers?

Contributors:
Sara Fischer, media reporter, Axios
Sue Halpern, writer and scholar-in-residence, Middlebury College
Surya Mattu, engineer and data reporter, Gizmodo
Alan Wolk, author of Over The Top. How The Internet Is (Slowly But Surely) Changing The Television Industry

On our radar

  • Two Reuters journalists are facing up to 14 years in jail in Myanmar for supposedly breaching an obscure, colonial-era law.
  • A legal battle looms in the Philippines where the authorities want to take down an online news site, Rappler.

South Korea’s ‘Defector TV’

Despite sharing the same peninsula, the citizens of South Korea don’t know as much about their northern neighbours as you might think.

Most of what they do know comes from the testimonies of those who have sought asylum in the south.

The Listening Post explores a uniquely South Korean phenomenon: ‘Defector TV’.

Contributors:
Kim A-ra, defector and broadcaster, Channel A
Christopher Green, co-editor, Sino-NK
Park Hyun-sun, sociology professor, Ewha Womans University
Kim Ji-young, defector and broadcaster, TV Chosun