Confusion re Vox's gadget blog
Monday, April 25, 2016 by Dave Winer

There's some confusion about the Vox announcement that their new Circuit Breaker gadget blog will be published only on Facebook. I think I can help clear up some of the confusion, because it relates to how Instant Articles work.

When you visit their page on Facebook in a web browser, you see the normal kind of link. A title, and a short description linking to the Vox website. 

But when you visit the item on a mobile device, instead you see a link to a page that's hosted by Facebook, with the Instant Article rendering.

So the illusion that it's all on Facebook is broken if you come in through the web.

I've been lobbying Facebook that this confusion should be erased. I want to see IA content displayed in the timeline, like a normal Facebook post, but with linking and styling. So we can have Facebook host stuff written for the web, with all the web fidelity preserved.

I believe if they really want to be a place where news flows, they have to do this. Otherwise the confusion that Vox faced today, and the inability to deliver the product that they want to deliver, and that (I believe) Facebook should want them to deliver. I want the same for readers of my blog, who are coming in through Facebook.

PS: I understand this issue because my site also has an Instant Articles feed. I was confused by this with my own feed, and also with the Vox feed today.