Facebook on Wednesday announced an update to its platform that will make it easier for users to decide what content they want to see in their feeds. With today’s changes, the social network offers new ways to help users discover posts that are relevant to them.
‘Show More’ and ‘Show Less’ options on Facebook
As announced in a blog post by Meta, the updates to the Facebook Feed aim to make it more relevant to users. Starting today, people will see “Show More” and “Show Less” options for each post on the social network. Facebook’s algorithms will use these feedbacks to change what’s shown in the feed for each user.
More specifically, Facebook has a ranking score for each post on the social network. When you select the “Show More” option, Facebook will temporarily increase the score for that post and related content. When you select “Show Less,” the platform will temporarily reduce the score for that content. The score is used to determine what you see in the feed.
“By offering more ways to incorporate direct feedback into Feed ranking, we’re making our artificial intelligence systems smarter and more responsive,” says the company.
At first, users will see the new options periodically directly in their feed. This way, Facebook expects to help users become more familiar with the new feature. However, you can find the “Show More” and “Show Less” options at any time by tapping the three-dot menu on each post.
The company is also introducing new options that let users control which sources of posts they want to see more or less of in the feed. For example, you can now choose to see more posts from friends and family and fewer posts from groups and pages.
Meta under criticism for pushing suggested content
These changes to Facebook come at a time when Instagram has come under criticism for pushing users to see too much suggested content in their feed. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently said that Instagram would show even more recommended content. However, these changes were postponed indefinitely after even celebrities complained about it.
As for the changes to Facebook Feed, these are now being rolled out to users.
