Audience Engagement Platforms
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Buzzfeed founder says Facebook should pay for content on News Feed

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Buzzfeed founder and chief executive Jonah Peretti has said Facebook is not sharing revenue from its News Feed, despite publishers providing a “large chunk” of the content it features.

He said the social media giant makes “gobs” of money from content but is not doing a “great job” of paying publishers who create it.

Speaking to the Columbia Journalism Review, Peretti said: “The best way to influence the content that’s there and shape it in a positive way would be to say I am going to reward content with traffic . . . but also with revenue.

“Those two things together would allow for an economic model that would give [publishers] some control over the news feed.”

Said Peretti: “When it comes to monetising video, I think YouTube is doing a pretty good job. In Facebook’s case, there has been a lot of thought that in the future they might do a better job [of paying creators], but right now they’re not doing a great job.

“There’s a certain length of time [publishers] can wait for that future to arrive, and I think [Facebook needs] to accelerate… Instant Articles is fine, it’s meaningful for us, but it’s still not a good enough product to support news, it’s still not paying enough to fund journalism.

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