WASHINGTON The Huffington Post, the popular news and opinion website, launched a collaboration with Facebook on Monday that allows users to share stories with their friends on the social network.

HuffPost Social News connects users of the website created by Greek-born Ariana Huffington with their Facebook friends, the news they are reading and the stories they are commenting on, The Huffington Post said in a statement.

The explosive growth of online social networking has fundamentally changed our relationship with news, Huffington, who founded the Democratic-leaning huffingtonpost.com four years ago, said in a blog post.

Its no longer something we passively take in. We now engage with news, react to news, and share news, she wrote in a blog post.

HuffPost Social News takes social news to a whole new level, Huffington said, adding that it will allow users to “build and develop a community that follows what you read and care about.

HuffPost Social News allows users to create personalized profile pages and share comments and stories with other members.

Our goal is to make HuffPost Social News the go-to place for Facebook users to share news, both the stories they love and the stories they hate, with friends, said Huffington Post chief executive Eric Hippeau.

Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg said HuffPost Social News will give people new ways to share and filter news and current events through their networks of friends on Facebook.

The Huffington Post has attracted a strong following for its lively mix of news, entertainment, opinion and blogs submitted by politicians, academics and celebrities.

It has been enjoying spectacular growth online at a time when newspapers across the United States are struggling to cope with a steep drop in print advertising revenue and the migration of readers to free news online. -AFP