The stuff we saw in our feeds was spoon-fed to us for years by Facebook’s potent algorithms.
It now claims to be giving us a little more control.
According to Facebook’s parent firm Meta Platforms, we will have the option to choose how much clickbait or graphic content we want to go through in the upcoming weeks.
Here is how it will operate:
Facebook removes content that doesn’t comply with its policies. Consider terrorism or child sexual exploitation. Additionally, it downgrades “sensitive” content like graphic or violent postings as well as “low-quality” or “unoriginal” stuff like click-bait or spam.
By selecting “decrease more,” we will soon be able to decide if we want to see less of such information in our feeds.
We can choose “don’t reduce” content if we want to view more “poor quality” or “unoriginal” content in our feeds.
According to Facebook, that choice won’t be available for “sensitive” content.
Facebook users in the US will also have the option to choose whether they want to see more or less information that has been fact-checked by one of the company’s external fact-checking partners. According to Facebook, the fact-checked information will still be labelled.
Users have long griped about how little control they have over what appears on their Facebook feeds. Algorithms have made those decisions for years.
Facebook has started to make some changes in recent years. For instance, users may now pick between a feed that is managed by Facebook and one that is arranged in reverse chronological order.
Facebook’s Instagram app already allows users more discretion over the amount of sensitive content they view. According to the firm, this adjustment will bring Facebook closer to Instagram.
Facebook stated in a statement: “We’re introducing this in response to consumers informing us that they want a wider flexibility to determine what they see on our apps. “This builds on work we’ve been doing in this area for a long time and will help to make Facebook user controls more consistent with the ones that are already on Instagram,” the author says.
