Facebook is planning to launch a new "news" tab in the next few months, focusing on trustworthy news from prominent publishers. The Wall Street Journal broke the news, claiming that Facebook has approached publishers such as ABC News, Dow Jones, The Washington Post and Bloomberg, offering as much as $3 million per year to license headlines and article previews. According to the report, the licensing deals would run for three years and would give significant freedom to the news outlets, who could choose how their content appears in the news tab, as well as choose whether they want to host the full content on Facebook or have a headline/excerpt link back to their site.

TWITTER: TESTING FILTER FOR OFFENSIVE MESSAGES

Twitter is taking its screening of unknown direct messages a step further. The social media giant announced today that it is testing a filter for messages that contain offensive content. Messages containing potentially suspect words will be stored away in a folder marked "additional messages." Users can then opt to see them specifically. The social media giant has made some efforts this year to use technology to flag abusive tweets without the need for human intervention. While such algorithm-assisted policing can work, they also flag plenty of false positives and miss a lot of filth. Twitter has also tested a "hide replies"feature and made it easier to report abusive tweets.