Facebook announces a big News Feed change — and just wants you to be happy
Facebook is re-tweaking its News Feed again.
This time it wants to bring it back to friends and family instead of viral videos and media posts, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in a post Thursday.
"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," he wrote.
He said the change should make everyone feel better: "The research shows that when we use social media to connect with people we care about, it can be good for our well-being. We can feel more connected and less lonely, and that correlates with long term measures of happiness and health."
With fewer posts from businesses, brands, and media, expect to see more of what your "friends" are sharing and liking.
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Zuckerberg didn't mention Facebook's role in the 2016 election or Russian meddling through the platform as motivation to change what shows up on the social network.
A breakdown of the "closer together" initiative (also outlined in a video above) indicates news stories will get de-prioritized, while conversations that Facebook thinks will spark a lot of engagement will get a boost.
To achieve a happier Facebook user base, it looks like Facebook will focus on comment-heavy posts -- and not just quick comments like, "Oh no!" or "Thanks!" but lengthy (meaningful!) comments.
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All those "likes" won't mean as much as full-on engagement, which under the new rules seems to mean back-and-forth conversations. Sounds like posting links back and forth won't count as much in the meaningfulness meter.
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In other words, publishers will almost certainly see traffic drop and video views decrease.
Zuckerberg rationalized that the changes will ultimately make for a better Facebook experience, naturally, but might actually cause people to spend less time on the social network.
"I also expect the time you do spend on Facebook will be more valuable," he wrote.
UPDATE: Jan. 11, 2018, 5:07 p.m. PST This post has been updated with more information about the News Feed changes.
Topics Facebook Social Media
Sasha is a news writer at Mashable's San Francisco office. She's an SF native who went to UC Davis and later received her master's from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She's been reporting out of her hometown over the years at Bay City News (news wire), SFGate (the San Francisco Chronicle website), and even made it out of California to write for the Chicago Tribune. She's been described as a bookworm and a gym rat.
