Facebook Newsfeed Update: Public Figure, Brand Pages Limited, Family, Friends Posts First

Facebook announced that they are limiting the number of public figure or brand profiles that users may follow. The newsfeed will further focus on posts from friends and families.

Facebook Vice President for Product Management Adam Mosseri, stated on Wednesday that to be able to satisfy users, interesting and relevant newsfeeds are maintained. Facebook users reportedly claimed that it is more important to see posts from close friends, USA Today reported. Moreover, the VP said that stories in newsfeeds are ranked, so users will first see posts from people they frequently interact than posts from businesses.  

The Facebook Engineering Director Lars Backstrom acknowledged that updating their system may cause media publishers or public figures to decline Facebook use. Rich Gordon, professor and director of digital innovation at Northern University, said that users who like and follow media companies want to see posts from the page because of the content.

Newsfeed algorithm could treat public profiles of news differently compared to other public organizations and figures in a way that users can enjoy the news articles of their chosen pages without being bombed by other irrelevant posts.

Facebook informed users of the newsfeed values including connecting people to posts of close family and friends and informational content of their liked Pages, FB Newsroom reported. The recent issues of Facebook's lack of transparency of choosing Trending Topics is a result of a new featuring a former employee of Facebook, who claimed that people working on Trending Topics department did not promote conservative viewpoints on purpose.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg assured users that Facebook is a platform for all ideas; an avenue to promote all sorts of political viewpoints. According to Zuckerberg, Facebook believes that the world would be better when people from different backgrounds with different ideas have power to share thoughts and experiences. Facebook a unique social media platform, the CEO said.