Facebook Has Tweaked Its Algorithm to Prioritize News That’s ‘Informative’
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Facebook is ever tweaking and tinkering with its prized News Feed algorithm in its quest to keep the platform at the center of the media ecosystem and everyone’s attention.
In recent months, the company has modified its algorithm to prioritize posts by friends and penalize clickbait in an effort to maintain the integrity of its News Feed and keep its reputation sterling. That reputation took a hit when earlier this year claims surfaced that members of the Facebook team had actively suppressed conservative news and it was revealed that the algorithm was not, and indeed unable to, function as a neutral arbiter of content.
Today, Facebook has announced that it is introducing a “ranking signal” that will help it give greater prominence to stories that are informative, allowing them to float to the top while relegating others to the bottom. Facebook, in its announcement, stated that it broadly defined informative news to be that which is “related to people’s interests, engage[s] them in broader discussions, and contain[s] actual news.”
Speaking to TechCrunch, Facebook noted that the change was not about censoring content or injecting other content into the News Feed. Instead, it characterized the move as reshuffling the order in which stories appear on people’s News Feeds. The company also reassured anxious publishers that while “some Pages might see a small increase in referral traffic, and some Pages might see minor decreases,” the changes would not be drastic overall.
Of course, what people find to be informative is subjective and personal, Facebook notes in its blog post, so it is releasing a Feed Quality Program to get feedback as to how they can improve their News Feed. The program includes a global crowd-sourced survey that invites users to rank stories on a scale of one to five, five being “really informative.”
According to TechCrunch, Facebook is hoping that this information, combined with its data on your viewing habits, what you tend to like, share, and comment on, and whom you associate with in your social network, will keep your News Feed interesting to you so you keep coming back.
