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Facebook announced Wednesday the extension of its local news feeds to more than 400 US cities, a way to encourage users to spend more time on the platform.
Launched initially in January, the "Today In" thread includes information published by local news sites, but also by institutional actors in the area concerned, such as firefighters, the town hall or the police.
According to Anthea Watson Strong, product manager for local news, surveys of Facebook users have shown that more than 50% of them would prefer to see more local information on Facebook.
No other content was the subject of such a request among visitors of the platform, said the official in a message posted Wednesday.
While the newsfeed was so far intended for agglomerations or regions with a local press, Facebook has added to the device "information deserts", lacking media coverage followed.
A study published in October by the University of North Carolina showed that the disappearance of 20% of newspapers since 2004 in the United States has helped to increase the number of these deserts of local information.
In these information deserts, the thread is fed by institutional information, supplemented by content from media covering surrounding regions.
Facebook also says it is working with a hundred local authorities to set up an alert system that would warn local Facebook users of urgent and important information.
In addition to the United States, the social network is testing a version of "Today In" in Australia.
This development of local information is part of the initiatives taken by the network of Mark Zuckerberg to boost its growth: if the number of Facebook users continues to increase, with 2.27 billion monthly users active at the end of September, the In recent months, growth has been lower than expected by the markets.
© 2018 AFP
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