Facebook’s NewsFeed gets tweaks from time to time from the company where they inject updated algorithms that change how items are ranked.
Although the NewsFeed can be a valuable source of information from outlets that you engage most with, it can also surface articles that bear misinformation or have clickbait headlines.
Well Facebook wants to remedy as they explained in a blog post where they will determine where a post “might be authentic.” The updates include incorporating new algorithms to better identify and rank authentic content and a new way to predict and rank in real time when posts are more relevant to you
“We have heard from our community that authentic stories are the ones that resonate most,” Facebook says in the blog post, “those that people consider genuine and not misleading, sensational or spammy.” This means that posts that bear fake news, have clickbait headlines to make it sensational or generally are spammy will be punished by the new changes.
This has been effected by Facebook categorizing pages whether or not they were posting spam or asking for key metrics like likes, shares or comments. In the new system, if a post from your Page is authentic, it will show up higher in your feed.
In the case for real time ranking of posts, Facebook will check for signals like the size of engagement on a post so if there is a post from a Page that is getting a lot of engagement, it will be shown higher in your NewsFeed. Facebook also admits that this change will lead to a “small increase in referral traffic” in some Pages or “minor decreases” in others.
This update follows the company’s resolve to stem out the spread of fake news and clickbait articles on its feed and this is a follow up to that strategy.
