Did Facebook Just Change Reach Again Sep 2017
Facebook Overhauls News Feed to Focus on What Friends and Family Share
SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook has introduced sweeping changes to the kinds of posts, videos and photos that its more than than two billion members will see most ofttimes, saying on Thursday that it would prioritize what their friends and family share and annotate on while de-emphasizing content from publishers and brands.
The shift is the most significant overhaul in years to Facebook's News Feed, the cascading screen of content that people see when they log into the social network. Over the next few weeks, users will begin seeing fewer viral videos and news articles shared by media companies. Instead, Facebook will highlight posts that friends accept interacted with — for example, a photo of your dog or a condition update that many of them have commented on or liked.
The changes are intended to maximize the amount of content with "meaningful interaction" that people swallow on Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, the visitor'southward chief executive, said in an interview. Facebook, he said, had closely studied what kinds of posts had stressed or harmed users. The social network wants to reduce what Mr. Zuckerberg chosen "passive content" — videos and articles that ask trivial more of the viewer than to sit down back and picket or read — then that users' time on the site was well spent.
"We desire to brand sure that our products are non just fun, but are good for people," Mr. Zuckerberg said. "We need to refocus the system."
Th's changes enhance questions of whether people may end up seeing more than content that reinforces their own ideologies if they cease up oftentimes interacting with posts and videos that reflect the like views of their friends or family unit. And artificial news may nonetheless spread — if a relative or friend posts a link with an inaccurate news article that is widely commented on, that post will be prominently displayed.
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The goal of the overhaul, ultimately, is for something less quantifiable that may exist difficult to achieve: Facebook wants people to feel positive, rather than negative, after visiting.
"When people are engaging with people they're close to, it'southward more meaningful, more fulfilling," said David Ginsberg, manager of research at Facebook. "Information technology'due south proficient for your well-being."
Facebook has been under burn down for months over what information technology shows people and whether its site has negatively influenced millions of its users. The company has been dogged past questions virtually how its algorithms may take prioritized misleading news and misinformation in News Feeds, influencing the 2016 American presidential election as well as political soapbox in many countries. Last year, Facebook disclosed that Russian agents had used the social network to spread divisive and inflammatory posts and ads to polarize the American electorate.
Those problems take landed Facebook in front of lawmakers, who take grilled the visitor about its influence last year. Next Wednesday, Facebook is fix to announced at some other hearing on Capitol Colina, forth with Twitter and YouTube, near the online spread of extremist propaganda.
The repercussions from Facebook'due south new News Feed changes volition virtually certainly be far-reaching. Publishers, nonprofits, small business organization and many other groups rely on the social network to reach people, so de-emphasizing their posts volition near likely hurt them. Adam Mosseri, vice president of production management at Facebook, who is responsible for running the News Feed, acknowledged that "there will be anxiety" from partners and publishers who oft complain about the constant changes in what will be shown across the network.
The modify may also work against Facebook's immediate business interests. The company has long pushed users to spend more than time on the social network. With different, less viral types of content surfacing more oftentimes, people could cease up spending their time elsewhere. Mr. Zuckerberg said that was in fact Facebook'southward expectation, simply that if people end up feeling better near using the social network, the concern volition ultimately benefit.
Changes to Facebook's News Feed are not new. The Silicon Valley company constantly experiments with what shows upwards in the News Feed, and in the by information technology has besides said information technology would prioritize posts from users' friends and family. But Thursday'due south shift goes beyond previous changes by prioritizing posts that have generated substantive interactions. A long comment on a family member'southward photograph, for case, might be highlighted in the News Feed above a video that has fewer comments or interactions between people.
Facebook has conducted research and worked with exterior academics for months to examine the effects that its service has on people. The work was spurred past criticism from politicians, academics, the media and others that Facebook had not adequately considered its responsibleness for what it shows its users.
After the 2016 ballot, for instance, Mr. Zuckerberg initially shrugged off qualms about Facebook'due south outcome on the issue, even as outsiders pointed to the proliferation of fake news stories on the site that had attacked Hillary Clinton. Mr. Zuckerberg later said he had been too hasty and dismissive of the concerns. More recently, he began signaling that Facebook was rethinking what it shows people on the site.
Last week, he posted on Facebook about his goals for 2018, including "making sure that fourth dimension spent on Facebook is time well spent" and adding that "this will be a serious yr of self-improvement and I'one thousand looking forward to learning from working to prepare our issues together."
On Thursday, he said many of the discussions nearly Facebook's responsibilities had prompted the company "to get a better handle on some of the negative things that could happen in the organization."
"Just because a tool tin be used for expert and bad, that doesn't make the tool bad — it just means you lot need to understand what the negative is so that you can mitigate it," he said.
Facebook and other researchers have particularly homed in on passive content. In surveys of Facebook users, people said they felt the site had shifted as well far abroad from friends and family unit-related content, especially amidst a swell of outside posts from brands, publishers and media companies.
"This big wave of public content has really fabricated us reflect: What are we really here to practice?" Mr. Zuckerberg said. "If what we're here to do is help people build relationships, then we need to adjust."
Mr. Zuckerberg said he was now focusing his company effectually the new arroyo. Production managers are being asked to "facilitate the about meaningful interactions between people," rather than the previous mandate of helping people discover the near meaningful content, he said.
Mr. Zuckerberg added that his way of running Facebook has shifted since the nascence of his two daughters, Maxima and August, in contempo years. He said he had rethought the fashion he views his and Facebook's legacy, even if information technology volition cost the company in the brusk term.
"It's important to me that when Max and August grow up that they feel like what their male parent built was good for the world," Mr. Zuckerberg said.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/11/technology/facebook-news-feed.html
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