Facebook introduces new Audio hub for podcasts, audio clips, and Live Rooms

Facebook will now be housing all its podcasts, Live Audio Rooms and short-form audio clips, called Soundbites, in a new Audio hub for users to discover content.

• READ MORE: Spotify’s miniplayer for Facebook is here

While the Audio hub is only being rolled out in the United States as of the time of writing, Facebook’s Clubhouse competitor feature, Live Audio rooms, is opening up for the global audience.

Live Rooms were initially limited to public figures and content creators, but with this global rollout, Facebook has decided to make the feature available for Groups as well as adding the feature on the Android app. Admins for Facebook Groups will be able to control who enters these Live Rooms, with public and private options available within the settings of the feature.

The SoundBites feature has been tested since June with a select group of creators including author Josh Sundquist; actress and disability advocate Lolo Spencer, and content creator Molly Burke. And with this new expansion of its audio-related offerings, the feature is expected to be available to more people in the United States in the near future.

The social media giant has been in the news for all the wrong reasons as of late, with a whistleblower sounding the alarm on the harm caused by the platform’s policies, which the whistleblower alleges put expansion and profit over the clamping down on hate speech and misinformation [per Reuters].

It is perhaps with this in mind that Facebook has assured TechCrunch that it is adapting its moderating tools in order to capture audio content that violates the platform’s terms of use. Facebook says it is developing tools in order to help the company identify such content, but given the live nature of the Live Rooms, it remains to be seen how effective such enforcement will be.