Are you dissatisfied with what appears on your Facebook News Feed? Do you find yourself abusing the option of “I don’t want to see this” because you were bothered by the content that was displayed?
Facebook announces tweaks in algorithm in the next several weeks, improving the stories you see in your news feed. The current algorithm uses metrics such as likes, shares and comments in order to judge and sort what’s interesting for you.
However, after the new changes are implemented, Facebook hopes to show you more “meaningful” posts by going beyond these three factors.
Ansha Yu and Sami Tas, the software engineers responsible with the sorting of your news feed, have realized that it wasn’t enough to look at comments, likes and shares in order to establish what’s interesting to a user.
More often than not, people prefer not to engage with the post, such as sharing it on their own profile, but it doesn’t mean they were interested in the story. Serious or tragic current events often present interest, but people don’t feel comfortable or don’t want to like or comment on it.
Engineers explained that the improved algorithm takes more factors into considerations, not just the time you spend looking at a story. It has also learned that a 10-second period could either represent enjoyment and interest, or it could simply mean the user has a slow internet connection.
However, in the high majority of cases, spending significantly more time on a specific story showing up in News Feed compared to the other stories they look at, represents a good sign that the user has found the content to be relevant and interesting.
Facebook has highlighted that this twitch in algorithm will not affect the pages administered by companies and celebrities, easing the concern that has joined similar tweaks in the past. Page posts will not appear in the user’s news feed less frequently than before.
Ever since August 2013, Facebook has made a habit out of being more transparent about the algorithms they use for your news feed. The company said that an average user has the potential of viewing more than 1,500 stories from their friends and pages with each login.
However, thanks to the algorithm, that number is narrowed down to around 300. Imagine how much more time you would spend on Facebook without it! Some of the past changes sparked controversy, such as experiments that would hide some stories and study the impact it had on the users’ own posts.
Image Source: Mashable