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Facebook Announces Friends and Family First


FILE -The Facebook logo is displayed on an iPad in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
FILE -The Facebook logo is displayed on an iPad in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Facebook is retooling its News Feed algorithm so that users see more posts from friends and family, the company announced Wednesday.

“Facebook was built on the idea of connecting people with their friends and family. That is still the driving principle of News Feed today, wrote Facebook’s Adam Mosseri, who heads up the News Feed team, in an online post. “Our top priority is keeping you connected to the people, places and things you want to be connected to — starting with the people you are friends with on Facebook.”

News Feed was launched 10 years ago, but Mosseri said in its current form it contains “far too much information for any one person to consume.”

Facebook also unveiled what it’s calling its News Feed values with the first being “connecting people with their friends and family.” The second is providing information such as news, and the third is to be entertaining via videos and funny pictures.
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The changes could impact news organizations and other content publishers who have come to rely on Facebook as a powerful distribution network for their products.

Mosseri told CNN that “publishers may see a noticeable but small change in referral traffic.”

Perhaps in response to allegations, the social media giant was tweaking News Feed to leave out conservative political view. The newly tweaked feed promises to be a “platform for all ideas,” with Mosseri adding, “We don’t favor specific kinds of sources - or ideas.”

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