The Facebook announced that updates are coming to the promotion of news with local sources in users' News Feed, which will offer more reliable information since it can be cross-referenced at the local level.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, said that if a user follows a local publisher or if someone shares a local story, it will appear higher in the news stream.
The local newsletter began piloting Sunday, Facebook said, and will expand to more countries this year.
"When I traveled the country last year, one thing all the people told me was that we all have a lot in common, if we can overcome some of the most divisive national issues," Zuckerberg told Facebook.
"A lot of people have told me that if we could tone down the issues that divide us and focus on specific local issues, then we would have made more progress together."
Facebook stated that there are no restrictions from a geographic region to eligible issuers. This will not only benefit the big local publishers, but also the small pages covering sports, arts and social stories.
Η movement of Facebook to prioritize local news follows changes to the News Feed that earlier this month to reduce the amount of misleading content and fake news in the largest social network in the world.
Facebook has begun to prioritize friends' publications and high-quality news sources, saying it expects to reduce the news feed in News Feed.
"This is the beginning of our efforts to prioritize high quality news. "This update may not target all small or specialized publishers first, but we will try to improve accuracy and coverage over time." post on his blog.
"All our work to reduce fake news, misinformation, clickbait, impression and invalid accounts is still being done."
Facebook is reportedly also testing a special news section called Today In and showing news and information to its community.