Refresh of the News Feed algorithm will de-prioritize content shared by media and businesses in favor of that produced by friends and family, Zuckerberg says 
 
 Mark Zuckerberg announced a major overhaul of Facebook’s News Feed algorithm that would prioritize “meaningful social interactions” over “relevant content” on Thursday, one week after he pledged to spend 2018 “making sure that time spent on Facebook is time well spent”. 
 
 The social media platform will de-prioritize videos, photos, and posts shared by businesses and media outlets, which Zuckerberg dubbed “public content”, in favor of content produced by a user’s friends and family. 
 
 “The balance of what’s in News Feed has shifted away from the most important thing Facebook can do – help us connect with each other,” Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post announcing the change. “We feel a responsibility to make sure our services aren’t just fun to use, but also good for people’s well-being.” 
 
 Mark Zuckerberg sets toughest new year's goal yet: fixing Facebook Read more 
 
 The changes seemed designed to quiet some of the maelstrom of criticism Facebook has received in the past year, as critics have taken the company to task for cloistering users in filter bubbles, facilitating the proliferation of misinformation, allowing foreign interference in national elections, and exploiting human psychology for profit. 
 
 Facebook was slow to acknowledge the legitimacy of those concerns, with Zuckerberg notoriously dismissing the idea that propaganda and fake news impacted the US presidential election as “pretty crazy” in late 2016. But the company changed its tune in fall 2017, after it acknowledged that a Russian influence operation had purchased $100,000 worth of ads promoting politically divisive content in the lead up to the election. 
 
 After a handful of former Facebook insiders began speaking out about social media’s addictive nature and deleterious impact on society, the company acknowledged for the first time in December that passive consumption of social media can be harmful to users’ mental health. 
 
 Facebook maintains that active and “meaningful” interaction can be good for people, so users will soon be more likely to see a post from a friend than a viral video. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest Mark Zuckerberg pledged to spend his year ‘making sure time spent on Facebook is time well spent’. Photograph: Stephen Lam/Reuters 
 
 In his post, Zuckerberg noted “video and other public content have exploded on Facebook in the past couple of years”, to the extent that some feel it is “crowding out” updates from friends and family. 
 
 What Zuckerberg did not mention is Facebook’s direct involvement in that explosion. Despite frequently disclaiming that it is not a publisher or media company, Facebook has paid media outlets to produce videos for the site. About two-thirds of Americans rely on social media for news, according to a survey by Pew Research Center. 
 
 The changes to News Feed will likely have a significant impact on the news media. As Facebook grew to dominate users’ attention time, many publishers adjusted their editorial strategies around the type of content the News Feed algorithm was promoting. 
 
 Facebook, Google and Twitter to testify in Congress over extremist content Read more 
 
 Facebook sparked outcry from publishers in six countries in October when it removed all public content from the News Feed to a separate “Explore Tab”. In a blog post accompanying Zuckerberg’s announcement, Adam Mosseri, Facebook’s head of News Feed, said that the current changes would not be as extreme as those “tests”, and some public content will still appear in users’ feeds. 
 
 But Mosseri conceded: “As we make these updates, pages may see their reach, video watch time and referral traffic decrease. The impact will vary from page to page, driven by factors including the type of content they produce and how people interact with it.” 
 
 Zuckerberg wrote that the changes will likely result in people spending less time on Facebook – a change that may have negative impacts on the company’s bottom line. 
 
 “If we do the right thing, I believe that will be good for our community and our business over the long term too,” he wrote. 
 
 In an interview with the New York Times, the father of two put a finer point on his concerns about doing the right thing, saying: “It’s important to me that when Max and August grow up that they feel like what their father built was good for the world.” ||||| This is a set of web collections curated by Mark Graham using the Archive-IT service of the Internet Archive. They include web captures of the ISKME.org website as well as captures from sites hosted by IGC.org.These web captures are available to the general public.For more information about this collection please feel free to contact Mark via Send Mail ||||| By Adam Mosseri, Head of News Feed 
 
 Facebook was built to bring people closer together and build relationships. One of the ways we do this is by connecting people to meaningful posts from their friends and family in News Feed. Over the next few months, we’ll be making updates to ranking so people have more opportunities to interact with the people they care about. Mark outlined this in a post today. 
 
 What is the update? 
 
 Today we use signals like how many people react to, comment on or share posts to determine how high they appear in News Feed. 
 
 With this update, we will also prioritize posts that spark conversations and meaningful interactions between people. To do this, we will predict which posts you might want to interact with your friends about, and show these posts higher in feed. These are posts that inspire back-and-forth discussion in the comments and posts that you might want to share and react to – whether that’s a post from a friend seeking advice, a friend asking for recommendations for a trip, or a news article or video prompting lots of discussion. 
 
 We will also prioritize posts from friends and family over public content, consistent with our News Feed values. 
 
 What does this mean for Pages and public content? 
 
 Because space in News Feed is limited, showing more posts from friends and family and updates that spark conversation means we’ll show less public content, including videos and other posts from publishers or businesses. 
 
 As we make these updates, Pages may see their reach, video watch time and referral traffic decrease. The impact will vary from Page to Page, driven by factors including the type of content they produce and how people interact with it. Pages making posts that people generally don’t react to or comment on could see the biggest decreases in distribution. Pages whose posts prompt conversations between friends will see less of an effect. 
 
 Can people still see posts from the Pages they follow at the top of News Feed? 
 
 Yes. People who want to see more posts from Pages they follow can choose See First in News Feed Preferences to make sure they always see posts from their favorite Pages. 
 
 What types of Page posts will show higher in News Feed? 
 
 Page posts that generate conversation between people will show higher in News Feed. For example, live videos often lead to discussion among viewers on Facebook – in fact, live videos on average get six times as many interactions as regular videos. Many creators who post videos on Facebook prompt discussion among their followers, as do posts from celebrities. In Groups, people often interact around public content. Local businesses connect with their communities by posting relevant updates and creating events. And news can help start conversations on important issues. 
 
 Using “engagement-bait” to goad people into commenting on posts is not a meaningful interaction, and we will continue to demote these posts in News Feed. 
 
 Does this mean you are eliminating Page content from News Feed? 
 
 No. This update is not the same as the recent tests where all Page content was moved to the Explore Tab. Page posts will still appear in News Feed, though there may be fewer of them. ||||| CLOSE Two billion users will see major changes as part of what the social network has planned to address growing controversy over the role it plays in people's lives and in society. Time 
 
 Facebook News Feed on mobile (Photo: Facebook) 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook is radically altering the formula that determines what bubbles to the top of people's news feed, part of sweeping changes the giant social network has planned to address growing controversy over the role it plays in people's lives and in society. 
 
 Soon, Facebook says you will see more status updates from friends and family that spark meaningful social exchanges — parents discussing what bedtime stories to read to children, a friend seeking advice on places to travel or a newsy article or video on a topic you care about. What Facebook wants you to spend less time doing: passively scrolling through updates on your timeline, reading articles and watching videos, but not interacting with others. 
 
 "Recently we've gotten feedback from our community that public content — posts from businesses, brands and media — is crowding out the personal moments that lead us to connect more with each other," Facebook founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook 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." 
 
 Zuckerberg has been laying the groundwork for making that fundamental shift in all of Facebook's products. He recently told investors he wants Facebook to encourage "meaningful social interactions" and downplayed the importance of how much time people spend there. 
 
 That's because the move could come at a high price. Zuckerberg anticipates Facebook's 2 billion-plus users will spend less time on and be less engaged with the social network — including watching videos, a lucrative new revenue stream. But, he says, "if we do the right thing, I believe that will be good for our community and our business over the long term, too." 
 
 CLOSE According to researchers, if you use social media heavily, it can negatively effect your mood. Buzz60 
 
 Pressure has been building on Facebook and its CEO as the toxic content flowing through Facebook — violent live videos, fabricated news articles and divisive messages from Russian operatives to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign — has been blamed for ripping holes in the social fabric. 
 
 Another wave of criticism pummeling Facebook: that the company's products exploit vulnerabilities in human psychology to hook people on social media, hijacking their time and attention and undermining their well-being. 
 
 Facebook has begun to acknowledge that some social media use can be harmful to mental health, a backflip for the Silicon Valley company which, until recently, rejected a growing body of research showing that Facebook use can spur negative feelings. Last month, Facebook released its own research demonstrating that when people connect with each other on social media, it has a positive effect. On the other hand, passively scrolling through social media does not. 
 
 The concession did not happen in a vacuum. In November, Sean Parker, the founding president of Facebook, took aim at Facebook in an interview with Axios, saying he and other executives created a "social-validation feedback loop" to make Facebook psychologically addictive. 
 
 Early Facebook executive and former vice president of growth, Chamath Palihapitiya, also accused Facebook of creating "short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops" that are "destroying how society works." He later softened his remarks. 
 
 But that negativity may already be showing up in Facebook's numbers. 
 
 Pivotal Research analyst Brian Wieser says his analysis of recent Nielsen data shows consumption of Facebook declined in August and September. It's unclear if that's because Facebook already accounted for such a big chunk of our digital lives or because people are growing increasingly frustrated with it. 
 
 "Facebook is responding to a decline in consumption, not just encouraging a decline in consumption," Wieser says. 
 
 Satisfaction with Facebook has slipped among users, according to RBC Capital Markets analyst Mark Mahaney. His research shows 11% of Facebook users are extremely satisfied with the service, down from 15% a year ago. 
 
 "We see Facebook’s News Feed change as Facebook reacting to greater public scrutiny of its value proposition," Mahaney wrote in a research note. 
 
 One of those users not feeling Facebook these days is Tracy Garza, a neurodiversity consultant in the Bay Area. She says she's using Facebook a lot less than before because she's turned off by its unrelenting push to make money off, well, everything. 
 
 "They don't realize there comes a time when many or us are going to say 'I'm just tired of being the product here,'" Garza said. 
 
 The company's mounting difficulties prompted Zuckerberg to declare last week that his personal challenge for the year — which in the past has run the gamut from learning Mandarin to slaughtering his own meat — would be to fix what ails Facebook. A big part of that effort would be "making sure that time spent on Facebook is time well spent," he said. 
 
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 Facebook constantly tweaks its computer algorithms to maintain interest in its news feed, the company’s main attention-getter. It uses a process called ranking to determine which posts show up in people's news feed and in what order based on what Facebook thinks they will be most interested in. In recent years, the company made a series of changes to its news-feed algorithm to surface more content posted by friends and family. 
 
 Those changes undercut publishers, businesses and celebrities who come to the giant social network to gain new audiences and revenue streams but have seen their ability to reach Facebook users continue to decrease. Facebook says these pages may see another decline in traffic being referred and videos being watched, though the impact will vary depending on the type of content they produce and how people interact with it. 
 
 "It's gotten to the point where there is so much content in news feed — media content, things that aren't necessarily from your friends or from people you care about — that you end up being less engaged in it," said Debra Williamson, an analyst with research firm eMarketer. "I see that in myself. I see my news feed and say, 'Where's all my friends' stuff?'" 
 
 Facebook News Feed on desktop and mobile. (Photo: Facebook) 
 
 Zuckerberg says people can expect to see less public content such as posts from businesses, brands and publishers. And the public content they do see more will be held to the same standard. "It should encourage meaningful interactions between people," he said. 
 
 Fewer videos watched could crimp Facebook's aggressive push to become a major hub of video content. It is spending hundreds of millions on original programming and mounting a major live video push to fulfill Zuckerberg's mission of turning Facebook into a "video-first" platform. The lure: the billions of dollars in advertising that are expected to migrate to digital video from television that could help make up for an expected slowdown in Facebook's core business. 
 
 John Hegeman, vice president of product management for Facebook's news feed, shrugged off the business implications of people watching fewer videos. Facebook displayed its willingness to sacrifice profit to tackle big problems when it announced late last year a plan to hire thousands of content moderators to deal with Russian interference and misinformation on the platform. 
 
 "We continue to think video is a great format to share what's going on in your life with friends," Hegeman said. "At the same time, we also want to make sure the video we watch on Facebook doesn't interfere with the primary thing that Facebook is about." 
 
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– What you see when you log on to Facebook will be changing soon—because Mark Zuckerberg wants to make sure "the time we all spend on Facebook is time well spent." The Facebook CEO announced major changes to news feeds in a post Thursday, saying they've received feedback that "public content—posts from businesses, brands, and media—is crowding out the personal moments that lead us to connect more with each other." Zuckerberg said that from now on, "you can expect to see more from your friends, family, and groups," and the public content that does appear should be the kind that encourages "meaningful interactions between people." He gave the example of "tight-knit communities around TV shows and sports teams." In a blog post, Facebook said it will "predict which posts you might want to interact with your friends about, and show these posts higher in [your] feed." Zuckerberg acknowledged that the focus on interaction instead of passive consumption might cause people to spend less time on Facebook, but he said the change "will be good for our community and our business over the long term, too," the Guardian reports. The move follows criticism that Facebook and other social media sites exploit human psychology to make themselves addictive, though analysts say Facebook consumption was already beginning to tail off. "Facebook is responding to a decline in consumption, not just encouraging a decline in consumption," Pivotal Research analyst Brian Wieser tells USA Today.