Photo Credit: Google Images
It now appears that Big Tech companies are so tired of hearing criticism about the news content appearing on their social media platforms that they are doing away with the news, once and for all. And that’s opening up a potential opportunity for other social media rivals that have never been known for their news content.
The current thinking is that LinkedIn might be the biggest beneficiary of companies such as Facebook exiting the news space. If so, what does that mean for the way that we consume the news on social media, as well as the future of social media itself?
Less focus on political news, more focus on business news?
Perhaps the biggest takeaway of Big Tech abandoning the news completely is that there is going to be a dramatic ramping down of polarizing political content online. According to LinkedIn, its algorithm will be optimized for business and professional content, not for political content. So get ready to hear less about the election season, and more about the latest sales season. You’ll hear more about top business leaders, and less about top political leaders.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course. Most people are probably burned out from all the polarizing political content that’s all over social media these days. Every issue is seemingly a political issue these days, and how you respond to it on social media could have ramifications for your relationships with friends, co-workers, and even family members. So maybe it’s a good thing that the focus for now will likely shift to “safe” topics like workplace trends, strategies to get ahead in your career, and fun new business innovations.
Unfortunately, over the long run, that might not be the best thing for America. There’s a lot going in our nation right now, and now is not the time to bury our heads in the sand and pretend that these issues don’t matter. The only way we’re going to arrive at an immigration policy that works, for example, is by talking it out with our friends and family members. It won’t come about after a good online discussion about fun new workplace trends.
Can LinkedIn overcome the tyranny of the algorithm?
Moreover, just because LinkedIn says it is going to favor content from top new publishers doesn’t mean that people are going to click on this content all of sudden. In the era of the almighty algorithm, we’ve seen plenty of evidence that pushing out bland, harmless content simply does not work. After all, we’ve been trained to click only on things that make us angry, outraged, or morally indignant. Does anyone really click on generic news content unless it has the words “BREAKING” or “EMERGENCY ALERT” in the headline?
So, in many ways, LinkedIn will need to overcome the tyranny of the algorithm. It will need to figure out the right types of content in order to get people to click. And it will need to do so without polarizing them in the process.
This could be more difficult than it sounds. For most people, the only time they visit LinkedIn is when they are trying to make a change in their career. No matter how much original podcast or video content LinkedIn tries to create for brands, does anyone really think that people are going to visit LinkedIn more than YouTube for their daily fix of viral videos? In just about any survey about which social media platforms people are using, LinkedIn usually falls into the “other” category, lumped together with the likes of Reddit and Pinterest.
A new business model for social media?
While there is certainly reason to applaud LinkedIn and its ongoing commitment to “the news,” this almost seems like a case of too little, too late. Facebook is now out of the news game entirely, Meta won’t even recommend political content on Threads or Instagram, and X is favoring “citizen journalism” (which can be trusted) over traditional journalism (which can not be trusted).
Social media platforms far larger than LinkedIn have decided that “the news” is not a winning strategy. For me, this sends a clear signal that social media is broken. We need a new business model, and a new way of helping the best news content organically to bubble up to the top.
Unfortunately, that might not mean creating more engaging podcasts or slicker videos from news publishers. It might mean rethinking the current business model entirely. For companies like LinkedIn, that might be some very bad news indeed.
