Facebook's News Feed will no longer carry "spammy" stories, frequently uploaded content and "like-baiting" content.
Facebook is trimming down spam from user's News Feeds in an attempt to bring more quality content and relevant posts and information. The company said Thursday that it is targeting three broad categories in its latest News Feed clean-up effort, which began last summer. The social network will be going after the so-called "like-baiting" content, "frequently circulated content" and "spammy links."
Facebook users are familiar with posts that blatantly ask for like, comment and share, some of which even say the organization gets $1 for each like. Facebook conducted a survey that shows such like-baiting stories are 15 percent less relevant to users than other stories with similar number of likes, shares and comments. The social network is now working toward cleaning up the News Feed section where such posts will see a drastic decline over the next few months.
"We're making these changes to ensure that feed spam content does not drown out the content that people really want to see on Facebook from the friends and Pages they care about," Facebook Software Engineer, Erich Owens and Product Manager Chris Turitzin, wrote in a company's blog post, Thursday.
Besides putting an end to the like-baiting posts on users' News Feed, Facebook is also taking down repetitive content, which includes photos and videos that are uploaded on the site over and over again. Upon testing, Facebook found that the new change worked in favor of the users, as users were hiding 10 percent fewer stories on the site.
Finally, the social giant's last category includes the spammy links that appear on the site. These links use misleading content to take users to a website filled with advertisements. Reduction of such spammy links will help Facebook highlight content from reliable sources. In December last year, Facebook launched a new algorithm for its News Feed so users can find more high-quality news articles and less of meme photos that redirect users to different sites.
Facebook also assured that advertisers and publishers with genuine content will not be impacted by the change. In fact, the modification to the site will help increase the distribution of genuine content from publishers.
