Facebook’s ‘Today In’ section started appearing in residents’ online newsfeeds from Thursday, with Ballarat chosen as one of the first 10 Australian cities for the trial. 

The new tab on the social media site will curate local news, events, community page updates and weather for residents who are shown to be in Ballarat, using their GPS location, IP address and city included in their bio. 

Facebook news partnerships lead Australia, Andrew Hunter, said hard data from the first roll out in the United States showed “people returning to the service”, and constant feedback from users about the desire to see more community news.

“This is a separate place outside of the News Feed that people are accessing local news and local community information,” he said. 

Mr Hunter confirmed that every user will see the same content, and important alerts like bushfire information are likely to be pushed higher.  

He noted that one of platforms key focuses over the last 12 months has been “creating and improving more meaningful interactions”.

“The number one driver for this product being developed is that people on Facebook have told us regularly that they want to see more local news and information,” Mr Hunter said. 

Areas were selected based on where there were less than 500,000 active daily Facebook users and the volume of geographically-specific information, such as the presence of local or regional news publishers and community groups on social networking site.