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In 2018, Mark Zuckerberg said he would focus on fixing Facebook. This is the story of how those intentions went awry—and how a company beset by fake news ended up creating big new problems for the news industry. 1/ wired.trib.al/G1JdWfD
In 2018, FB downgraded outside content—including journalism. As an olive branch, FB said it would shelter trustworthy news. But in an obscure decision, it defined news as “politics, tragedy, or crime” 2/ wired.trib.al/G1JdWfD
Way back in May of 2017, Facebook drove about 40% of all outside traffic to news publishers according to Parse.ly. A year later, it was down to 25%. If you weren’t in politics, crime, or tragedy you were hit much harder. 3/ wired.trib.al/G1JdWfD 
And you’ve probably noticed these shifts in your own Facebook page. . . So do you feel like the news content you’ve seen in your NewsFeed has changed? 4/ wired.trib.al/G1JdWfD
As a result of this huge shift, Facebook set up a timebomb in its own NewsFeed that helped build a news ecosystem that resembled the front pages of Fox News. 5/ wired.trib.al/G1JdWfD
In the fall of 2018, Fox got more engagement on FB than any other English-language publisher. Its most popular posts were a feast of politics, crime and tragedy. One was about women rallying behind then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. 6/ wired.trib.al/G1JdWfD
Another example of Facebook’s power is what happened here at WIRED. In January 2018, traffic from FB suddenly dropped by 90%. For four weeks it stayed there. After many emails, FB finally found a problem with a single ad we’d run. But damage was done. 7/ wired.trib.al/G1JdWfD
Inside Facebook, there was a fierce debate about what to do about news. Chris Cox, Zuckerberg’s most trusted lieutenant, was pushing to give serious publishers a leg up. Joel Kaplan, a former deputy chief of staff to George W. Bush, disagreed. 8/ wired.trib.al/G1JdWfD
His argument? FB would look liberal if it only helped high quality outlets. Outlets like Breitbart and the Daily Caller, Kaplan argued, deserved protections. In the end: Zuckerberg tabled the issue. And FB's overall traffic to media continued to fall 9/ wired.trib.al/G1JdWfD
In September, Facebook ditched the “politics, crime, or tragedy” labeling for news and started funding local journalism. It also began setting up a separate vertical on FB for news. Will that solve the NewsFeed’s biggest problems? We’ll see. 10/ wired.trib.al/G1JdWfD
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