Facebook Changes the Way It Prioritizes News on the Platform

A Facebook spokesperson has confirmed that the company is changing how it prioritizes news stories in users' News Feeds.

This happens as the company continues to receive scrutiny for not taking enough action. Many believe the company should do more against those who incite hate and violence on the social media platform.

“When we ask people what kind of news they want to see on Facebook, they continually tell us they want news stories that are credible and informative. Today, we’re updating the way news stories are ranked in News Feed to prioritize original reporting and stories with transparent authorship,” said Facebook Vice President of Global News Campbell Brown and Product Manager Jon Levin in a blog post.

Facebook Taking Action

Facebook plans to address its goal in the following ways: promoting more original reporting and demoting reporting that lacks transparency.

“We will now prioritize articles in News Feed that we identify as original reporting on a developing story or topic,” Facebook's blog post revealed. It says they do so by checking groups of articles for each story. Then, they look for ones that more people use as sources. “We’ll start by identifying original reporting in English language news,” the blog post also added. Then, they “will do the same for news in other languages in the future.”

Facebook also aims to “demote stories that come from outlets that do not include accessible information about the publisher’s editorial staff,” Fox Business reported.

“We've found that publishers who do not include this information often lack credibility to readers,” said a spokesperson. There are also those who “produce content with click-bait or ad farms,” the representative also revealed. These two make up “all content that people tell us they don’t want to see on Facebook.”

Up Next:

• Facebook Plans to Permanently Shift to Remote Work After Pandemic
• Facebook Removes “Pseudoscience” as Category for Advertisers
• Twitter Apologizes for Accidentally Labeling Some Tweets as Misleading