Facebook recently announced that it will be making a significant algorithm change to its system in a while. This new algorithm will give more emphasis and views to posts by family and friends rather than other pages, videos, and groups. They are doing this to improve user experience and ensure that time spent on Facebook is time well spent.
This new tweak will result in lower visibility to organic posts from pages, celebrity pages, and news organizations which means that users will see more posts of friends and relatives who they care about. Videos which are considered passive by Facebook would also be not featured on users’ timelines. This is the result of context collapse where users sharing updates about themselves has reduced significantly. If people stop uploading updates about themselves, then there is no data for advertisers that can be used. This will result in lower revenues for Facebook. Hence in order to encourage people to comment and upload updates, Facebook will now give more emphasis on news feed from friends and family.
This announcement and the tweak comes in the face of criticism coming from all quarters regarding reports of social media being the reason for depression and sense of isolation among people. Facebook believes this tweak will make people more connected to their near and dear ones. "The research shows that when we use social media to connect with people we care about, it can be good for our well-being," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a post Thursday.
This move by Facebook, where it will highlight content that it deems as meaningful would greatly reduce Facebook’s role as a news source for many. However it will not affect advertisements, which will continue the same way as it used to. But businesses which were dependent on organic traffic will feel the pinch.
Facebook has often been ridiculed for being a platform where views of like-minded people are reinforced by similar posts from their friends. Facebook believes this is very much similar to how people interact offline as well. Facebook in its defense has claimed that Facebook users are exposed to opinions from various sources and not limited to only one kind of opinion and voices.
Zuckerberg said that he has taken it as a challenge to fix Facebook. "Facebook has a lot of work to do — whether it's protecting our community from abuse and hate, defending against interference by nation states, or making sure that time spent on Facebook is time well spent," he wrote. He said it is very difficult to ensure that the platform is safe from abuse and inline bullying, but Facebook is doing everything in its capacity in order to do so.
For more interesting articles log on to SMstudy.com/articles
