Facebook generally ranks stories in the News Feed based on past things that the user has clicked, liked or spent a long time browsing. Thanks to data from new surveys in which users are able to give stories a star ranking of one to five, the News Feed will soon base order on something else — what they want to see.
The result of the change could be that users will no longer see stories that use "clickbait" in an attempt to get the user to engage. Basically, stories should be easier on the eyes, not just show content that is more "clickable."
"The goal of News Feed is to show you the stories that matter most to you. The actions people take on Facebook — liking, clicking, commenting or sharing a post — are historically some of the main factors considered to determine what to show at the top of your News Feed. But these factors don't always tell us the whole story of what is most meaningful to you," said Facebook in a blog post.
The surveys will also ask people whether or not they think certain posts are ads, or which of two presented posts they would prefer to be shown.
Tuning the algorithm for how the News Feed decides what to show has helped Facebook remain fresh for almost a decade. The algorithm doesn't let spammers drown out other content in the feed, and it doesn't promote too many posts from the same person, meaning that it shows a variety of content that the user may actually want to see.
Twitter is facing similar issues, with users having to plough through mounds of content that they probably don't want to see.
Facebook, however, has been very direct in asking users what they actually want to see. As they scroll, users can simply rate content based on how much they actually wanted to see that content.
