Facebook giving users more control over the news feed

Facebook, the world’s largest social media platform is adding new capabilities that will allow users greater control over what appears in their news feed.

The social network has recently been chastised by politicians for the way its algorithms prioritize content work. It now claims to be experimenting with features to modify a person choice ranking & customization of feed.

For example — Increasing the number of posts uploaded by friends or family while lowering the no. from groups & pages.

It will also work on improving existing options easier to approach such as favourites & snooze as they are contained behind a sub-menu.

Regarding their testing phase, the company stated that they will start testing their beta version of the update by inviting individuals from different countries throughout the world, significantly increasing the number of invites in the upcoming weeks.

Ranking Row might get down

The platform’s “engagement-based rankings,” according to Facebook whistle-blower Frances Haugen, are harmful because they “prioritize and amplify contentious, polarizing, extremist content.”

It seems that the newly renamed firm Meta is facing political pressure to allow users to opt-out of its ranking methods.

Alteration to the feed

FB is implementing modifications to its commercial client’s news restrictions. Topic exclusion rules for the News Feed test are being extended to a small number of advertisers that run advertising in English.

They may choose between 3 categories: news & politics, social issues, and crime & tragedy. Their ads will not be shown to users who have recently engaged with those topics in their feed.

This is not the first time FB has tinkered with news feed settings. Since 2015, the firm has made a number of improvements, including giving users more material from close friends rather than companies & publishers. Even encouraging users to debate content, & prioritizing posts from reputable & high-quality news sources.

However, how FB manages its news feed remains a mystery.

TEC (Topic Exclusion Controls)

Advertisers’ worries about their ads showing in News Feed next to specific topics depending on their brand appropriateness choices will be addressed by these controls.

According to the Company-

Promoters who eliminated the News & politics categories were able to avoid its proximity 94% of the time.

Those who removed the Tragedy & Conflict tags were 99% successful in avoiding it.

While those who excluded the debated Social Issue were 95% to prevent it.

Ads preferences allow the users to control how marketers can approach them. It includes whether they are contained in the 3 TEC for the news feed.

The company even added that from their interactions with other companies that this feature will not meet the demands of every promoter & some marketers may want content-level granularity.

Filter Bubble Transparency Act

A group of US politicians has introduced this act. It aims to ensure that social media platforms provide users with the choice of using them without algorithmic manipulation.

It would put FB a long way back to its original state. When it was initially introduced & mainly displays your friend’s posts in chronological order.

Facebook, on the other hand, argues that people like algorithmic feed.

The company has conducted at least 2 tests in recent years to prove its point.

According to one study, individuals started using FB less frequently, spending less time reading information & posting less.

FB has provided a mechanism to view a chronological feed, however it is not a default choice. While going through the FB, in its mobile app, an option for “most recent” will occasionally show. It’s beneficial for that particular browsing.

What additional updates we might see?

The company soon will start experimenting & testing a new-content based appropriateness control. It aims to solve marketers’ worries about their ads showing preceding to specific subjects in both FB & Instagram feeds depending on their brand-appropriate choices.

It also plans to work with third-party brand safety partners to build a system that would check if content next to an ad in the feed corresponds with brands preferences.