Facebook seeks user feedback to improve its News Feed

By Ashika Rajan, Trainee Reporter
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Social media giant Facebook has announced that it was taking steps to incorporate direct feedback from users to arrange their News Feed as per their preference.

When users open their Facebook account on a mobile device or visit the website, the first thing they see is their News Feed, which contains messages from friends and businesses.

In a blog post, Facebook stated that the company is conducting tests around the world to get more detailed feedback from users about what they want to see.

Ms. Aastha Gupta, Product Management Officer Facebook pointed out that “while a post’s engagement or how often people like it, comment on it, or share it, can be a helpful indicator that it’s interesting to people, this survey-driven approach, which largely occurs outside the immediate reaction to a post, gives a more complete picture of the types of posts people find most valuable and what kind of content detracts from their News Feed experience. Now, we’re building on these surveys by asking new questions about the content people find valuable as well as the content people don’t enjoy seeing in their News Feed.”

Finding out if users find a post inspiring, gauging interest in certain subjects, better understanding content users want to see less of, and making it easier to provide feedback directly on a post are some of the different ways Facebook would be exploring to gather feedback from users.

“Overall, we hope to show people more content they want to see and find valuable, and less of what they don’t. While engagement will continue to be one of many types of signals we use to rank posts in News Feed, we believe these additional insights can provide a more complete picture of the content people find valuable, and we’ll share more as we learn from these tests,” Ms. Gupta added.

The social media giant said that users have requested more control over their feed, as well as less political and more motivational content.

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