Publishers In Some European Countries Can Now Register Their News Pages On Facebook

Facebook has announced that publishers in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland can now register their news Pages on the platform.

Facebook is bringing the ability for more European publishers to register their news Pages, with an expansion of the feature to Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, and Finnish-language websites. Before applying, all publishers need to check that they abide by a set of guidelines that Facebook says were “developed with news organizations, academics, and industry groups.” One of these guidelines is that Pages “must focus primarily on reporting about current events and information, cite sources, and include dates.”

Also, those Pages that post mostly ads or other promotional content will not be eligible to register. This also applies to Pages that have been publishing articles rated as false by Facebook’s third-party fact-checkers. Despite the above, the goal is to make the feature “as inclusive as possible,” making the ability to apply equally accessible by a Page with a large team behind it or a smaller Page serving news locally.

Pages that are included after they apply will not look different from others, and their inclusion will not impact their Page verification (blue checkmark) status.

Benefits of registering a news Page on Facebook

1. Facebook uses the optional information that publications choose to submit as part of their application to appear within the context button in News Feed. Furthermore, links to a publisher’s fact-checking policies, ethics policies, corrections policies, ownership & funding information, and editorial team information is also eligible to appear within the context button.
2. Facebook “uses registration and additional criteria to determine which news publishers should be exempt from going through the ad authorization process or labeling their ads as related to social issues, elections, or politics.”
3. Pages that are registered are given access to the Facebook Subscription Messaging Beta, as well as the WhatsApp Business API.

Apply to register your news Page

To begin, you need to follow the instructions below:

1. Go to your Facebook Business Manager and navigate to the Business Settings. There, you should see the “News Pages” section under the “Registrations” tab. Note that all admins with access to a Page within a Business Manager should be able to see this option.
2. Take note of the currently supported languages: Bengali, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, Hindi, German, Italian, Marathi, Norwegian, Portuguese, Sinhala, Spanish, Swedish, and Tamil.
3. Click on the “Select Pages” button and choose one or more news Pages to register.
4. Follow the rest of the instructions.

Note that in addition to submitting news Pages, publishers can also share information about their Pages, such as their logos or editorial policies.

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