Facebook will update ‘News Feed’ to favor ‘meaningful social interactions’

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Have you ever experienced going through your Facebook News Feed but seeing more ads or posts from brands and media rather than posts from your friends? All that is about to change, the social media site promised.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted on his personal account on Friday that the site will undergo changes to instead promote posts with “meaningful social interactions” from friends and family, instead of public content.

“Video and other public content have exploded on Facebook in the past couple of years,” Zuckerberg wrote. “Since there’s more public content than posts from your friends and family, the balance of what’s in News Feed has shifted away from the most important thing Facebook can do — help us connect with each other.”

He said that the changes have been made last year, but it will take more time for it to be complete.

“Now, I want to be clear: by making these changes, I expect the time people spend on Facebook and some measures of engagement will go down. But I also expect the time you do spend on Facebook will be more valuable,” the CEO expressed.

Further explaining the changes, the Facebook head of News Feed Adam Mosseri wrote in the site’s official blog that the team will predict what posts users would want to interact with friends, thus showing these higher in the feed.

“These are posts that inspire back-and-forth discussion in the comments and posts that you might want to share and react to – whether that’s a post from a friend seeking advice, a friend asking for recommendations for a trip, or a news article or video prompting lots of discussion,” the post read.

Content that will be elevated in the feeds includes live videos, as Facebook observed that these have “six times as many interactions” than regular videos. It cited that it helps start a conversation on important issues.

Because of the update, this will mean less content from public photos and videos from publishers and businesses will reign on the feeds. “Pages may see their reach, video watch time and referral traffic decrease. The impact will vary from page to page, driven by factors including the type of content they produce and how people interact with it,” the post stated.

“At its best, Facebook has always been about personal connections. By focusing on bringing people closer together — whether it’s with family and friends, or around important moments in the world — we can help make sure that Facebook is time well spent,” Zuckerberg assured. JB

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