Facebook Tests Giving Users More Ways To Manage Their News Feed

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Hotstar in UAE

Facebook is testing new ways for users to manage content on their News Feed. The social network giant wants to give users more control and customization options over what they see on the platform. It is introducing the ability to increase or reduce the volume of content you see from a specific friend, family member, Group, Pages, and relevant topics that you are connected to on Facebook. So if you want posts from a friend to appear less frequently on your News Feed, you will be able to do that soon.

There’s no such middle ground on Facebook as of now. You either see everything from a friend or don’t see anything at all by unfollowing, unfriending, or blocking them. Facebook says it will also make it easier to access some of the existing controls such as Favorites, Snooze, Unfollow, and Reconnect. The company is starting to test out these changes among a small group of users in various countries across the world. It will expand the test to more users in the coming weeks.

Facebook has made numerous changes to how users see content on News Feed. Every year, it makes some tweaks and introduces newer ways of distributing content on the platform. So the latest announcement doesn’t come as a surprise. You can also expect Facebook to see more changes in the future.

“This is part of our ongoing work to give people more control over News Feed, so they see more of what they want and less of what they don’t,” Facebook parent company Meta said in a blog post Thursday. “We’ll continue to share our progress as we test and learn.”

Facebook also has new controls for businesses

Along with new control and customization options for users, Facebook is also working on more News Feed controls for businesses. The company will let advertisers exclude their ads from posts related to certain topics such as News and Politics, Social Issues, and Crime & Tragedy.

This ability was initially available to select advertisers on the platform. Meta says it is now expanding the Topic Exclusion controls for Facebook News Feed to more advertisers. It also shared data from the initial test. Companies were able to avoid ad adjacency to topics they selected for exclusion up to 99% of the time.

Going forward, Facebook plans to introduce a new content-based suitability control for advertisers. This will address concerns advertisers have regarding their ads appearing next to certain posts.

2021-11-19 15:05:16