Introducing Watch, a New Platform For Shows On Facebook

Watching video on Facebook has the incredible power to connect people, spark conversation, and foster community. On Facebook, videos are discovered through friends and bring communities together. As more and more people enjoy this experience, 

we’ve learned that people like the serendipity of discovering videos in News Feed, but they also want a dedicated place they can go to watch videos. That’s why last year we launched the Video tab in the US, which offered a predictable place to find videos on Facebook. Now we want to make it even easier to catch up with shows you love.

Introducing Watch

We’re introducing Watch, a new platform for shows on Facebook. Watch will be available on mobile, on desktop and laptop, and in our TV apps. Shows are made up of episodes — live or recorded — and follow a theme or storyline. To help you keep up with the shows you follow, Watch has a Watchlist so you never miss out on the latest episodes.

Watch is personalized to help you discover new shows, organized around what your friends and communities are watching. For example, you’ll find sections like “Most Talked About,” which highlights shows that spark conversation, “What’s Making People Laugh,” which includes shows where many people have used the Haha reaction, and “What Friends Are Watching,” which helps you connect with friends about shows they too are following.

We’ve learned from Facebook Live that people’s comments and reactions to a video are often as much a part of the experience as the video itself. So when you watch a show, you can see comments and connect with friends and other viewers while watching, or participate in a dedicated Facebook Group for the show.

A Platform for Shows

Watch is a platform for all creators and publishers to find an audience, build a community of passionate fans, and earn money for their work. We think a wide variety of Facebook shows can be successful, particularly:

• Shows that engage fans and community. Nas Daily publishes a daily show where he makes videos together with his fans from around the world. The Watchlist makes it easy for fans to catch every day’s new episode.
• Live shows that connect directly with fans. Gabby Bernstein, a New York Times bestselling author, motivational speaker, and life coach, uses a combination of recorded and live episodes to connect with her fans and answer questions in real time.
• Shows that follow a narrative arc or have a consistent theme. Tastemade’s Kitchen Little is a funny show about kids who watch a how-to video of a recipe, then instruct professional chefs on how to make it. Each episode features a new child, a new chef, and a new recipe. Unsurprisingly, the food doesn’t always turn out as expected.
• Live events that bring communities together. Major League Baseball is broadcasting a game a week on Facebook, enabling people to watch live baseball while connecting with friends and fellow fans on the platform.

We think Watch will be home to a wide range of shows, from reality to comedy to live sports. To help inspire creators and seed the ecosystem, we’ve also funded some shows that are examples of community-oriented and episodic video series. For example, Returning the Favor is a series hosted by Mike Rowe where he finds people doing something extraordinary for their community, tells the world about it, and in turn does something extraordinary for them. Candidates are nominated by Mike’s fans on Facebook.

We’re excited to see how creators and publishers use shows to connect with their fans and community. You can learn more about making shows on our Media blog.

We’ll be introducing Watch to a limited group of people in the US and plan to bring the experience to more people soon. Similarly, we’ll be opening up Shows to a limited group of creators and plan to roll out to all soon.

News Feed FYI: Addressing Cloaking So People See More Authentic Posts

We are always working to combat the spread of misinformation and the financially-motivated bad actors who create misleading experiences for people. Today we’re sharing additional steps we’ve taken to remove even more of them from Facebook, so that what people see after clicking an ad or post matches their expectations.

Some of the worst offenders use a technique known as “cloaking” to circumvent Facebook’s review processes and show content to people that violates Facebook’s Community Standards and Advertising Policies. Here, these bad actors disguise the true destination of an ad or post, or the real content of the destination page, in order to bypass Facebook’s review processes. For example, they will set up web pages so that when a Facebook reviewer clicks a link to check whether it’s consistent with our policies, they are taken to a different web page than when someone using the Facebook app clicks that same link. Cloaked destination pages, which frequently include diet pills, pornography and muscle building scams, create negative and disruptive experiences for people.

Since cloaking exists across many of today’s digital platforms, we will also be collaborating closely with other companies in the industry to find new ways to combat it and punish bad actors. Over the past few months we have been ramping up our enforcement across ads, posts and Pages, and have strengthened our policies to explicitly call out this practice. We will ban advertisers or Pages found to be cloaking from the platform.

How We Identify Cloaking
We are utilizing artificial intelligence and have expanded our human review processes to help us identify, capture, and verify cloaking. We can now better observe differences in the type of content served to people using our apps compared to our own internal systems.

In the past few months these new steps have resulted in us taking down thousands of these offenders and disrupting their economic incentives for misleading people.

How Will This Impact My Page?
We see cloaking as deliberate and deceptive, and will not tolerate it on Facebook. We will remove Pages that engage in cloaking. Otherwise Pages should not see changes to their referral traffic.

Facebook Celebrates Pride Month

As Pride celebrations begin around the world, Facebook is proud to support our diverse community, including those that have identified themselves on Facebook as gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, transgender or gender non-conforming. In fact, this year, over 12 million people across the globe are part of one of the 76,000 Facebook Groups in support of the LGBTQ community, and more than 1.5 million people plan to participate in one of the more than 7,500 Pride events on Facebook.

This year, we’re excited to unveil more ways than ever before for people to show their pride and support for the LGBTQ community on Facebook:

Update Your Profile Pic with a Rainbow Frame 
Throughout the month of June, you might see a message from Facebook in your News Feed wishing you a Happy Pride and inviting you to add a colorful, Pride-themed profile frame. You can access the profile frame by visiting https://facebook.com/celebratepride or by tapping on the Edit button on your own profile picture. Additionally, you might also see a special animation on top of your News Feed if you happen to react to our message!

React with Pride
You may see a colorful, limited-edition Pride Reaction during Pride Month. When you choose this temporary rainbow reaction, you’ll be expressing your “Pride” to the post. People in major markets with Pride celebrations will be able to use a temporary rainbow reaction during Pride month. You can also like this page to access the reaction, however, because this is a new experience we’ve been testing, the rainbow reaction will not be available everywhere.

Brighten Up Your Photos
In Facebook Camera, you can find some new colorful, Pride-themed masks and frames. If you swipe to the left of News Feed, click on the magic wand to bring up camera effects and you’ll be able to find the effects in the mask and frame category.

Support an LGBTQ Cause 
In the US, start a Facebook Fundraiser or donate to your favorite LGBTQ cause. On Facebook, you can raise money for a nonprofit or people — for yourself, a friend or someone or something not on Facebook.

Facebook isn’t the only place to celebrate the cause. All across our entire family of apps, you will have the opportunity to show your support:

Join the #KindComments Movement on Instagram
The photo sharing app is committed to fostering a safer and kinder community, and this June will be turning walls in major US cities into colorful beacons of LGBTQ support where you can leave supportive comments on your posts. You can also celebrate Pride and be creative with stickers and a rainbow brush.

Frame Up with Pride on Messenger
During Pride month, you can add some love to your conversations with friends and family with Pride-themed stickers, frames, and effects in the Messenger Camera.

Our Commitment and Participation
Facebook has long been a supporter of LGBTQ rights, through our products, policies and benefits to our employees. Not only will we be a part of Pride activities in more than 20 cities around the world, including in San Francisco, where we first marched in 2011, but we will also celebrate with our employees by hosting events and discussions, as well as by draping the Facebook monument outside the Menlo Park headquarters in the rainbow flag, as the company has done each year since 2012.

Our commitment and support of the LGBTQ community has been unwavering. From our support of marriage equality and bullying prevention, to the many product experiences that we’ve brought to life, we are proud of our attention to the LGBTQ experience on Facebook, often thanks to the many LGBTQ people and allies who work here.

Last year, for the first time ever, we began publicly sharing self-reported data around our LGBTQ community at Facebook. In a recent, voluntary survey of our employees in the US about sexual orientation and gender identity, to which 67% responded, 7% self-identified as being lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, transgender or asexual. We are proud to support the LGBTQ community, and while more work still remains, we are eager to be active partners going forward.

Happy Pride!