Facebook Explains The Principles That Guide How The News Feed Works

Facebook Explains The
Principles That Guide How
The News Feed Works

The News Feed is quite central to the
Facebook experience and their biggest asset
since that is where its 1.65 billion active
users interact with each other and are served
with ads by the company. We know that it is
powered using algorithms where some
content is favoured over others but today
they have decided to dive deeper into the
mysterious inner workings of the system.


In a blogpost,Adam Mosseri, Facebook’s VP
of Product Management explained the new
update to the News Feed where he started
by stating these 5 “News Feed Values


Friends and Family come first

Facebook states that this is the “driving
principle” of the News Feed since the
company’s mission is to connect people with
their friends and family.
That is why if your
friends and family post anything, they will be
at the top of your News Feed.


The company also reveals that they did some
research where they found out that people
expect that their feed informs and entertains
them.
Informing in the sense that the stories
they see on their feed are meaningful to them
and entertaining in the sense that their News
Feed should be a source of entertainment Platform for all ideas
Facebook expects the News Feed to have the
sort of integrity where they don’t favour
specific kinds of sources other than what you
give as feedback thanks to your activity.
In
addition, they also want people to feel safe in
the midst of a multitude of opinions on the
platform.


Authentic communication

Authenticity matters and that is why
Facebook insists that they try to understand
what people are posting on the News Feed to
determine if they are spammy or sensational
and if they are, you will see less of them.

This means in the end you will end up seeing
more authentic stories that matter to you.

You control your experience
This is either a deliberate or an automatic
way you influence the content you see on the
News Feed


Deliberate in the sense that if
you don’t want to see certain content, you
can tap on a button and “hide” the post or if
you want to see more of them, you can set it
to “see first.”


Constant iteration

Facebook claims that their work is only 1%
finished on the News Feed and that is why
they continuously improve it each time. This
is the same statement they made on
Messenger and we can take this “1%” figure
they quote always as a measure that they
are yet to make sure the News Feed has hit
its peak.