Facebook has conducted a test over the last few months to allow more than 100 news publishers from North and South America, India, Australia and Europe to mark the latest news with a “breaking news” label. The goal is to help people see messages that could be important to them.
The “breaking news” label will be introduced to all Facebook users in Germany, Spain, the UK, France, Mexico and Australia. In other countries, Facebook wants to focus on further testing to measure enough users’ reactions and feedbacks.
Each label is added for a maximum of 6 hours and shows how old the message is. The breaking news label will give publishers another way to get more interaction and engagement. The test showed an increase in clicks, with an increase of 8%, as well as a 10% increase in sharing in the US and Canada.
Another new feature will expand local news modules to other regions. Local news is currently only used in the US and will now be introduced in 10 cities in Australia. The new update includes a selection of top posts, upcoming events, updates to nearby schools, and the latest local media articles.
Facebook’s goal is to bring real, up-to-date information to the platform and to reduce passive viewing of content that is harmful to health.