Facebook is challenging Twitter with a new tool called Signal, which is designed to end Twitter’s monopoly on the social media platform providing the latest news.
Facebook‘s new tool is designed to let journalists and media outlets to find, filter and embed content from Facebook and Instagram for news purposes.
Journalists will be able to get an insight on what is trending on social networks, and then embed that content in stories they are working on.
Journalists will also be allowed to access public figures based on their mentioning on Facebook, and it includes "real-time conversations" involving politicians, authors, actors, musicians, athletes and others known personalities.
The new tool is powered by its Media Solutions API, in combination with APIs from third-party providers including CrowdTangle and Storyful.
Twitter has a similar tool targeted towards journalists named Curator, which allows journalists to embed tweets with trending stories, which usually consist of a few sentences of text and followed by a bunch of tweets from famous users.
Facebook Global Media Partnerships Director Andy Mitchell said: "We’ve heard from journalists that they want an easy way to make Facebook a more vital part of their newsgathering with the ability to surface relevant trends, photos, videos, and posts on Facebook andInstagram for use in their storytelling and reporting.
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"Today we’re excited to introduce Signal, for Facebook and Instagram, a free discovery and curation tool for journalists who want to source, gather, and embed newsworthy content from Facebook and Instagram, across news, culture, entertainment, sports, and more all in one place."
Facebook previously introduced similar news related tools like FB Newswire which shows news headlines from a variety of sources and instant articles.
