Facebook News goes live in the United States

In an attempt to put an end to misinformation and fake news, Facebook has decided to start testing a dedicated place for news in the United States. Suggestively named Facebook News, the new channel features curated news picked by Facebook, which are delivered to a subset of people in the US.

Facebook News will ultimately feature a wide range of content across four categories of publishers: general, topical, diverse and local news. After surveying 100,000 people on Facebook in the US about what topic they were most interested in, the social network learned that many topics were under-served, especially those around categories like entertainment, health, business, and sports.

Currently, Facebook News will showcase local original reporting by surfacing local publications from the largest major metro areas across the country, beginning with New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas-Forth Worth, Philadelphia, Houston, Washington DC, Miami, Atlanta, and Boston.

More content will be offered in the coming months, which will include local news from Today In, Facebook's local news and community information tab that was recently expanded to over 6,000 US towns and cities.