Facebook revamps news feed, will give users more control of what they want to see

Facebook is giving users additional control of what they want to see on their feeds. It will also enable them to control who comments on their posts. Users can tweak their settings and allow people from these categories to comment on their posts -- public, friends, or profiles and pages you mention. The revamped news feed will enable users to see posts from select people including their friends and contacts if they want to. Users can select up to 30 friends and Pages to include in Favorites. Users can also choose to turn off the Facebook algorithm entirely and see posts in chronological order if they want.

Facebook further noted that Android users will get access to a Feed Filter Bar when they scroll up on a news feed. As the name suggests, this filter will let users choose between the most recent or the chronological feed or the algorithmically-ranked News Feed. This feature will roll out for iOS users in the coming weeks. Facebook will also give access to a Snooze button that will let users turn off political ads, people, or Facebook pages. Facebook will also give more context around the posts on a user’s news feed when they click on Why am I seeing this?

"We're now going to have a feed filter bar. When you scroll to the top of your feed, it'll be there," Facebook vice president Nick Clegg in an interview with The Verge said. "It'll always be there, and you can toggle between the feed as it currently exists, to have it chronologically ordered, or crucially, and this is new so that you can create your new feed of favorites - of favorite groups, friends, posts, and so on. And you'll be able to curate that, if you like, for yourself and toggle between those three."

Clegg also noted that Facebook’s major revenue comes from advertising and that advertisers do not want their brands to be displayed next to hateful content. The development comes as Facebook faces scrutiny for its role in promoting harmful content and misinformation, including from its algorithms. "The goal of News Feed is to connect you to what matters most to you: the people in your life, interesting content, and the world around you,¨ Facebook said in a blog post.

Clegg separately in a blog post on Medium noted, "This is the magic of social media, the thing that differentiates it from older forms of media. There is no editor dictating the front page headline millions will read on Facebook. Instead, there are billions of front pages, each personalized to our individual tastes and preferences."