Washington Post Social Reader. News. Better With Friends.

FAQs

ABOUT WASHINGTON POST SOCIAL READER:

Washington Post Social Reader is a free app that lets you read news on Facebook -- discover what your friends are reading and let friends know what you're reading, too! The app features Washington Post content and includes other high quality content providers. You can see the full list here. Once you're in the app, what you read may be visible to your social network. On Facebook, you scroll through your friends' status updates and view photos - now it's just as easy to check out what they're reading.

WHY WAS WP SOCIAL READER CREATED? WHAT'S SO SPECIAL ABOUT IT?

WP Social Reader was formed with the simple thesis that you want to know and read what your friends are reading. Facebook today is the center of your social content world and we view Social Reader as an app that we can deliver to your online doorstep. With WP Social Reader, you can see stories from many different sources, including the Post, and across a variety of topics, from celebrity gossip to presidential politics to sports.

WP Social Reader is easy to use: It's integrated within Facebook, so you're able to zip seamlessly from your News Feed to an article a friend read. This is an easy way for you to share what you're reading and to discover what your friends are reading. It's also personalized: the articles the app recommends are based on your interests and the stories you and your friends are reading. The more you and your friends use the app, the better it gets!

(Learn more about Trove, the engine behind WP Social Reader.)

HOW DOES WP SOCIAL READER FIGURE OUT WHAT NEWS STORIES TO SHOW ME?

WP Social Reader takes your social signals, primarily what you and your friends are reading within the application, as well as interests and likes from your Facebook profile information. It also takes into account trending stories across the app and web. Then, it whips up a selection of articles aimed to suit you from some of the Web's best sources, including The Washington Post.

HOW IS WP SOCIAL READER DIFFERENT FROM WASHINGTONPOST.COM?

WP Social Reader is an app that allows you to read news with your friends on Facebook. It offers content from The Washington Post, and also stories from our high-quality content partners. Everything you read within the app will be published to your Facebook network and the WP Social Reader app itself, unless you specify otherwise when you authorize the app.

On washingtonpost.com, your experience is the same as it has always been: you can go to the site and find award-winning journalism and breaking news from the Washington Post newsroom, and you can choose to recommend stories and share them with your friends on Facebook. The articles you read on washingtonpost.com will not be posted to your Facebook network unless you've chosen to do so.

IF I SIGN UP FOR WP SOCIAL READER, DOES THAT MEAN EVERYTHING I READ ON WASHINGTONPOST.COM WILL GET POSTED TO MY NEWS FEED?

Absolutely not. You can still go to washingtonpost.com and read stories without posting them to Facebook. If you have connected to Facebook on washingtonpost.com, only the stories that you've chosen to recommend from washingtonpost.com will appear on Facebook. These stories will only appear in WP Social Reader if you or your friends have chosen to opt-in to the WP Social Reader app and read the story within Facebook. For more information, please see our privacy policy.

CAN I HAVE A WASHINGTONPOST.COM ACCOUNT OR JUST A WP SOCIAL READER ACCOUNT, OR BOTH?

Both! By registering on www.washingtonpost.com, you gain full access to all Washington Post content including Pulitzer Prize-winning articles, photos, columns, blogs, Emmy award-winning videos, the ability to comment and participate in live discussions with Washington Post staff and expert guests, and access to up-to-the-minute traffic, weather, and political information alerts.

WP Social Reader, on the other hand, is a social experience within Facebook. The entire reading experience is shared and improved based on what articles you choose to read, and the articles your friends consume. Additionally, WP Social Reader aggregates content from many sites. You can check out all our partners here.

WHAT CONTROLS DO I HAVE ON WP SOCIAL READER?

It is important that you have the right to control your presence on the Web, and WP Social Reader is no exception. If you read a story you don't want shared with your Facebook network, no problem. All you have to do is click "Mark as Unread" at the bottom of the article. If you prefer to specify who you share your reads with or remove the Washington Post Social Reader app, please visit Facebook's app settings here.

If your settings for the app are anything other than "Public" or "Friends," what you read on Social Reader will not be shared with anyone else. For instance, if you set to "Only Me," your reads will not be public.

WHEN I'M IN WP SOCIAL READER, WILL ALL MY FRIENDS SEE THE STORIES I'M READING?

Unless you choose otherwise, stories you've read will be visible in Social Reader to your friends, published to your Facebook profile, and eligible to appear in your friends' News Feed, Timeline and Ticker. This instant sharing is an easy way to engage with your friends and let them know about the latest developments on topics that are important or interesting to you. However, if you decide that you want to remove the fact that you have read a particular article, you can uncheck the orange checkmark above the article text, and it will remove your read. The fact that you read the particular article will no longer be visible inside the Social Reader app or within a Social Reader widget on another website. It will also be deleted from within Facebook.

In addition, Facebook's app settings here help you control who sees what you have read. For more information about your privacy choices, please see our privacy policy here.

I ACCIDENTALLY ADDED THE APP. HOW CAN I REMOVE IT?

If you would like to remove the app altogether, please visit Facebook's app settings here.

HOW DOES WP SOCIAL READER WORK WITH CONTENT PARTNERS?

We are excited that such a wide array of innovative partners joined us to deliver a great social reading experience on Facebook. In addition to Washington Post content, we are pleased to have on board over 50 publications, which you can view here. If you would like to be a WP Social Reader partner, please email us.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE "POWERED BY TROVE?"

WP Social Reader is powered by Trove news aggregation technology designed by WaPo Labs, a digital team at The Washington Post Company focused on innovation and emerging technologies.

You can see that technology at work on Trove.

We're constantly tweaking our technology and checking the headlines to ensure that Trove performs at its best. If you have questions or suggestions about Trove, shoot us an email.

WHY CAN'T I PERSONALIZE WP SOCIAL READER THE WAY I DO TROVE?

Although WP Social Reader isn't organized by channels like Trove, it offers personalization of another kind: each click by you and your friends teaches the system what content is interesting for you. The more you and your friends click, the more you'll see news that fits your interests.