Facebook to launch cooperation with German media in May

Facebook will start showing news content from numerous German publishers and media outlets on a dedicated part of its site from May, the social media giant announced on Monday.

“We’re going to invest about a billion dollars in Facebook News worldwide over the next three years,” Jesper Doub, the Director for News Partnerships in Europe, said in an online news conference.

“Facebook News in Germany is part of that,” he added, without saying specifically how many individual publishers will be paid.

Publishers have partnered Facebook so that they can be remunerated for content linked to on the site.

This does not have to be produced especially for Facebook.

“What’s important here is that content itself doesn’t end up on Facebook, but we put links to the publishers’ offerings,” Doub stressed.

According to Facebook, partners so far include Germany’s Spiegel news magazine, the Funke Media Group and Hamburg-based publishing house Gruner + Jahr, which belongs to the Bertelsmann Group.

Doub described Facebook News as “a long-term collaboration,” adding, “We believe it will take several years before the product is really good.”

Facebook News was launched in the U.S. a year ago and was recently rolled out in Britain too.

In Australia, Facebook agreed last week to support publishers of its choice after a tough battle with the government there about paying for content.

The row had briefly prompted Facebook to ban news content from its platform. (Dpa/NAN)

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