Big changes coming for Facebook
Your news feed will soon be different.
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. “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.”
Pressure has been building on Facebook and its CEO as toxic content flowing through Facebook — the spread of violent live videos, fabricated news articles and divisive messages on hot-button social issues from Russian operatives to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign — has been blamed for ripping holes in the social fabric.
Another sharp wave of criticism has pummeled Facebook — some of it from former executives — who say the company’s products exploit vulnerabilities in human psychology to hook people on social media, hijacking their time and attention and undermining their wellbeing.
Facebook recently acknowledged 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 generate 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.
Mounting difficulties for Facebook prompted Zuckerberg to declare last week that his personal challenge for the year — which in the past had been visiting all of the states, learning Mandarin and 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.
Facebook constantly tweaks its computer algorithms to maintain interest in its news feed, the company’s main attention-getter.
“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.” Mark Zuckerberg CEO and founder of Facebook