Facebook Changes News Feed Algorithm to Prioritize Friends, What This Means for Publishers

Facebook is changing its News Feed algorithm so that it shows you posts from your friends and family first.

The change in the News Feed will prioritize posts made by friends and family you interact with over promotional content from publishers, the social media giant announced Wednesday.

“Facebook was built on the idea of connecting people with their friends and family,” Facebook spokesperson Lars Backstrom said in a press release. “Our top priority is keeping you connected to the people, places and things you want to be connected to.”

Because of the algorithm change, Facebook is expecting a drop in reach and referral traffic for the owners of Pages, which are typically run by brands, publishers and public figures, according to The New York Times.

Though the company did note that if a publisher’s traffic is driven primarily by Facebook users sharing their content, those Pages will likely experience less of a dip than others, Forbes wrote.

The change is another tweak in a long line of updates Facebook has made to its News Feed in the past few years. Last April, Facebook announced that it would rebalance the News Feed to give priority to people you know in real life, according to The Verge.

Part of the reason Facebook is so committed to keeping its News Feed updated lies in the way people use the social media platform. When users’ feeds are filled with content from media publishers and brands — rather than real people — Facebook sees a decline in user-created activity, according to Vanity Fair.

That’s obviously an issue for a social media giant, and it helps to explain Facebook’s obsession with getting the News Feed right.