back to article The Zuck promises to give you more local news – and so save the world

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has taken another step on his path to enlightenment, informing the masses that henceforth the Holy Facebook will include more news from local sources. The teaching was posted to The Zuck's personal page and in it he reveals the great truth to his followers: that understanding of issues closest to …

  1. Rainman

    Fake local news? No thanks

    Just what we need, fake local news. If you think society is forked already then this has the potential to be truly incendiary.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Fake local news? No thanks

      The Russians just want you to BELIEVE Mrs. Edmunds cat was stuck in a tree and the fire department had to be called.

    2. Chemical Bob

      Re: Fake local news? No thanks

      No, No, No! Everbuddy nose local nooz is bedden'n' that stuff frum th' Big Sitty 'cause the local stuff ain't got all them perversitives in it!

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Can't he just f*** off for 40 days and 40 nights? Preferably longer.

    1. frank ly

      All these eyes and click throughs can be yours if you will fall down and worship me.

    2. SVV

      I was thinking of a different biblical story - happened on the Friday of the Easter weekend if I remember correctly.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        but the Sunday is a problem in this scenario. Jezebel might be a better one, fall out of a window then when they went to find the body all that was left was her skull, hands and feet. The rest of her body had been chewed apart and devoured by dogs.

  3. Gene Cash Silver badge

    > precipitous drop in advertising revenue thanks to the dominance of digital companies

    No, it's a precipitous drop in advertising revenue thanks to the precipitous drop in quality.

    My local paper is so shite I get angry when they throw it on the lawn for free.

    They can't even get a story about maintenance on the local decorative water fountain right.

    They can't get a story about the airport building a new terminal right.

    They can't get a story about the Falcon Heavy right, even when it should have been just a copy&paste from the AP newsfeed.

    1. Pen-y-gors

      Local news?

      Our local paper isn't bad in many ways - lots of news, and so long as it's simple factual stuff (accidents, funerals, weddings etc) it's fine. Not good when it gets on to opinion and local cou ncil etc.

      So sad, it used to be a major campaigning paper - calling for votes for women back in the 1870s, but now different owners.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "it's simple factual stuff (accidents, funerals, weddings etc)"

        Actually, those are what I call "non news". Irrelevant.

        I really don't care if about bike/car accidents - unless they are caused by specific facts that need attention (i.e. if a bridge breaks, or an intersection is ill-designed), nor about people dying naturally or getting married (let it to Facebook...). Sure, they are cheap "news" easy to gather, they don't "annoy" anyone, and fill pages.

        Utterly useless, though. That's why I rarely read local news. Local journalism still need to be journalism. It does require resources, though, and ads aren't enough.

    2. JohnFen

      This. Newspapers seem to get the cause-and-effect thing backwards. Newspapers were harmed by massive consolidation that resulted in a serious decline in quality. This happened before the internet was a viable competitor. People jumped to the internet for news because newspapers were already in a terrible state.

  4. Pen-y-gors

    Another problem

    For FB to show local news it needs to know where I am.

    I think not...I only switch location on on my phone when I'm using it as a GPS.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Another problem

      Facebook knows where you are before you do.

    2. Rainman

      Re: Another problem

      Your IP address gives that away before your GPS does.

      1. JohnFen

        Re: Another problem

        Not really -- or at least not reliably. My IP address would lead you to believe that I'm 100 miles away from where I really am.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Another problem

      Just you IP will give them a rough idea of where you are any time you're not on a mobile connection. Don't know if telco also give away some location info about IPs, to those who can pay for it...

  5. Kevin Johnston

    I wonder

    Could we convince them to use Southend News Network as a source? I know a few of the papers and other media types have bitten on some of their spoofs and it would be great of FB were to join that list

  6. Sgt_Oddball

    I wonder.

    If he's been speaking to Bong! Again?

  7. johnnyblaze

    FB could crash and burn tomorrow for all I care. Never used it, never will. How people get so caught up in it I'll never know. I was hoping that whatever will replace FB just hurries up and get's on with it, but I know it will just be the same... or worse. Who needs Skynet when you can have Zucknet.

  8. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge

    wtf?

    I have never seen any news on facebook - fake or otherwise.

    All I see is a load of my mates wishing each other happy birthday and sharing links to clips of kittens and publishing photos of their day out.

    I just checked - this *is* the "newsfeed" . News of what my mates had for tea.

    It is a misuse of the word news really.

    Am I missing something?

    1. Mark 85

      Re: wtf?

      Nope... it's call "mission creep". FB was, originally as I recall, just a place to connect with friends. They didn't do news, weather, sports, etc. as other sites (and hardcopies) did that. Now FB needs to zuck up all that it can, pasteurize it, and spoon feed it to the masses who would rather spend their time looking at cat vids, gossip from the neighbors and family and get their news from TV. That is, if they even care about finding what's happening in the world.

  9. Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

    You can't light a fire with Faecebook

    But I don't mind trying

  10. Chris G

    Zucker

    Good point from Kieron noting that Fbook produces nothing but will happily zuck up everyone else's content and then make money from having stolen other people's work.

    History's biggest parasite.

    1. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: Zucker

      Your BT landLine produces no content either - but its great for telling your friends what you had for tea.

      BT charge both a monthly fee and a by-the-minute call fee for every meal.

      Facebook does it for free

      1. Dan 55 Silver badge

        Re: Zucker

        BT won't (usually) replay other conversations down the phone line at you or record your conversation and play it to other people, or advertise something while you use it, or play news bulletins it has decided you might be interested in but often turn out to be completely wrong though.

  11. JohnFen

    Sorry, Zuck

    You simply have no credibility.

    Besides, you seem to be missing the underlying issue -- that Facebook is manipulating its users. That you're promising to be more civic-minded in your manipulations doesn't actually make that any better.

  12. jelabarre59

    bike path

    Would Zuck like to do something useful?

    Perhaps he could **STOP** bribing county executives (and other county bureaucrats) to get them to tear up a functional tourist railroad so they can use taxpayer money to build a bike trail for Zuck and his cronies.

    But no, Zuck feels he's better than the rest of us.

  13. John H Woods

    Local, yes... But news?

    Facebook insists that I am in Wolfhamcote, even warning me "it'll be raining in Wolfhamcote tonight!"

    It's not a million miles out, in terms of latitude and longitude, but Wolfhamcote has been abandoned for hundreds of years and now comprises little more than a few ruins and a deconsecrated church.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Anyone read Zuk's new Data Perv 'Principles'?

    Its a fountain of nothing! Yet 'facebook friendly RTE' (aka Facebook's Irish PR bitch & pal of lite-touch regulator 'DPC'), wouldn't want you thinking that:

    'Facebook reveals privacy principles for first time'

    https://www.rte.ie/news/world/2018/0129/936674-facebook-privacy/

  15. Florida1920
    FAIL

    Losing proposition

    If Facebook draws too many clicks away from local news sources, those sources will fail. There go Facebook's "free" sources. Facebook is trying to be the one-stop-shop for the Internet-illiterati. Zuck should stick to the plan: produce a site where sad people can post banal information about their meaningless lives. And saturate it with ads for weight-loss and self-help programs.

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