Facebook to Overhaul News Feed With More Content From Family and Friends, Less From Publishers

Thursday January 11, 2018 4:05 PM PST by Juli Clover
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg this afternoon announced some major changes that are coming to the Facebook News Feed, which will cut down on the content displayed from publishers to instead highlight more content from family and friends.

According to Zuckerberg, feedback from Facebook users has suggested content from businesses, brands, and media is crowding out personal content from friends, something Facebook wants to correct. Rather than aiming to help Facebook users find relevant content, it will now help users find "meaningful social interactions."
Based on this, we're making a major change to how we build Facebook. I'm changing the goal I give our product teams from focusing on helping you find relevant content to helping you have more meaningful social interactions.
Zuckerberg says that it will take months to roll out the new focus to all of its products, but the first change will be coming to the News Feed, which will feature more content from family, friends, and groups. Less public content will be displayed, and what is displayed, should encourage meaningful interactions.
As we roll this out, you'll see less public content like posts from businesses, brands, and media. And the public content you see more will be held to the same standard -- it should encourage meaningful interactions between people.
Through implementing these changes, Zuckerberg expects to see engagement and the time people spend on Facebook go down, but the time that is spent on Facebook "will be more valuable." Doing the right thing, he says, will be "good for the community" and Facebook's business over the long term.

Tag: Facebook
72 comments


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farewelwilliams
8 months ago
MAKE IT CHRONOLOGICAL BY DEFAULT. jfc i don't understand why FB/Twitter feels the need to show things out of order.
Rating: 38 Votes
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tylerthomas28
8 months ago
Too little too late Zuck... Facebook is clunkier than iTunes. Glad I abandoned it when it when I did.
Rating: 18 Votes
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Xavier
8 months ago
So you mean the 2 and 5 item won't be a sponsored posted every time you look anymore? Seriously, facebook is 99% ads, .9% other content you don't want to see, and .1% relevant.
Rating: 11 Votes
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BWhaler
8 months ago
Sure Comrads, that’s wha’t you’ll do.

Reminds me of McDonals. Every few years, they get backlash for their unhealthy menu, so they make some cosmetic changes promoting their salads, apples in kids meals, etc. six months later, everything back to normal.

And none of these announcements change the cancer that is the surveillance apartus that is Facebook. They will just make some changes to make their product stink less. Who cares.

Honestly, Facebook can’t fall fast enough to the dustbin that is Friendstr, AOL, et al.
Rating: 8 Votes
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Cougarcat
8 months ago

MAKE IT CHRONOLOGICAL BY DEFAULT. jfc i don't understand why FB/Twitter feels the need to show things out of order.


Seriously. Just make a dumb, chronological list of everything my friends post. That’s it.

At least with Twitter you can fix this with a good client.
Rating: 7 Votes
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TMRJIJ
8 months ago
They should also combine the Facebook and Messenger apps into one app. Also give us more options to get rid of useless adverts.
Rating: 7 Votes
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stoopkidblues
8 months ago
Lol so making Facebook into.. Facebook? o_Oo_O

Maybe this will give me a reason to get online again instead of just using it for logins lol
Rating: 6 Votes
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OldSchoolMacGuy
8 months ago
Good deal.

Many are too blind to see but Facebook makes changes in order to keep people coming back. Argue all you want about how much they've "ruined" it, that's not the case. The amount of time the average user spends on Facebook just continues rising. If it was as bad as you kids are claiming, that time would be dropping. Instead the data supports the opposite of your claims.

Facebook is brilliant at bringing people back. Please offer proof otherwise if you don't believe that to be the case.
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MAKE IT CHRONOLOGICAL BY DEFAULT. jfc i don't understand why FB/Twitter feels the need to show things out of order.


The average Facebook user would see more than 1,500 updates every day in they served them in chronological order. That's just not an option. Instead they do a wonderful job of figuring out what people want to see and showing more of those updates.

If they continued to show updates in chronological order, you'd see a bunch of garbage updates you don't care about and you'd leave the site. That would hurt their business. They're smarter than that.
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They should also combine the Facebook and Messenger apps into one app. Also give us more options to get rid of useless adverts.


Having 2 separate apps increases the time you spend with both, which means more chances to make money for FB. They're not going to combine them.

Advertising is how they make money. They're not going away.
Rating: 6 Votes
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Superhai
8 months ago
I don’t understand why some folks here spend so much time defending Facebook, to others who practically stopped using it.

Problem with Facebook is that they make it one fits all, and removes any options to control and customise it, instead depending on flawed algorithms.

I still keep an account because a few of my friends prefer it for messaging, and I send birthday messages for those I usually don’t call or use other messaging services.

Sometimes I scroll through my feed, but there are only ads, memes with only mine or other friends tagged, which I feel obligated to add a like or something. Then there are endless “remember the time” posts. Because people rarely post there anymore, Facebook feels the need to revive old posts, just to remain relevant.

Usually you could choose “most recent”, but it doesn’t matter anymore, most people don’t make meaningful interaction anymore. I still keep Facebook open in the background as to be notified about messages, and maybe thus contribute to the “viewer” statistics, even though I don’t actually watch my feed.
Rating: 3 Votes
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maflynn
8 months ago

According to Zuckerberg, feedback from Facebook users has suggested content from businesses, brands, and media is crowding out personal content from friends, something Facebook wants to correct. Rather than aiming to help Facebook users find relevant content, it will now help users find "meaningful social interactions."

Yep, but for me, I opted to walk away from facebook. I've deactivated my account and I'm happy I did.

Here's what I kept seeing on FB that pushed my away.
Media content as mentioned in this news story. I kept seeing crap that didn't mean much to me.
Hate. So much hate, it doesn't matter what the topic, people are just whining, complaining and being misrable.
PRSI content, people go out of their way it seems to complain for and against the establishment. I avoid the PRSI forum here at MacRumors, I do not want to see simiilar content on FB. ** please note I'm avoiding PRSI details here as they're not permitted in the open forums, so please lets not derail this thread ;)
Rating: 3 Votes
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