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Facebook redesigns app with special ‘News’ feed that shows zero posts from pals or family
FACEBOOK is now trialling a dedicated feed for news that's entirely separate from your normal News Feed.
It will be free from photos of your friend's new baby and your cousin's hilarious memes – and will focus entirely on journalism.
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The new Facebook News is designed to make it easier to track down actual news on Facebook.
It's currently being tested for some users in the USA, but could roll out globally if successful.
"Today we’re starting to test Facebook News, a dedicated place for news on Facebook, to a subset of people in the US," said Facebook's Campbell Brown.
"News gives people more control over the stories they see, and the ability to explore a wider range of their news interests, directly within the Facebook app.
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"It also highlights the most relevant national stories of the day. News articles will continue to appear in News Feed as they do today."
You'll still find regular news in your normal News Feed.
But the Facebook News section will be a dedicated and curated area for news that Facebook hopes you'll find interesting.
Facebook will be using a team of journalists to identify important news for the Today's Stories feature with Facebook News.
There'll also be automated personalisation that selects stories based on the news you read, share and follow.
Facebook has added Topic Sections that let you "dive deeper" into areas like business, entertainment, health, science & tech, and sports.
The Your Subscriptions area will be for people who have linked their paid news subscriptions to their Facebook account.
And controls are also available to let you hide articles, topics and publishers that you don't want to see.
Facebook has previously been criticised for not giving users news from a broad-enough spectrum of viewpoints.
Now Facebook says that its curators will have "editorial independence", choosing stories based on publicly available guidelines.
Content from local and independent publishers and journalists will be included, as well as major news organisations.
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In other news, Facebook recently launched a Dating feature that lets you find "secret admirers" in your friends list.
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