Facebook is Reducing Political Content in News Feed

As Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg mentioned on the earnings call, one common piece of feedback we hear is that people don’t want political content to take over their News Feed. Over the next few months, the company said the will work to better understand peoples’ varied preferences for political content and test a number of approaches based on those insights.

As a first step, they’ll temporarily reduce the distribution of political content in News Feed for a small percentage of people in Canada, Brazil and Indonesia this week, and the US in the coming weeks. During these initial tests the Facebook will explore a variety of ways to rank political content in people’s feeds using different signals, and then decide on the approaches we’ll use going forward. COVID-19 information from authoritative health organizations like the CDC and WHO, as well as national and regional health agencies and services from affected countries, will be exempt from these tests. Content from official government agencies and services will also be exempt.

To determine how effective these new approaches are, they’ll survey people about their experience during these tests. It’s important to note that we’re not removing political content from Facebook altogether. Their goal is to preserve the ability for people to find and interact with political content on Facebook, while respecting each person’s appetite for it at the top of their News Feed.

Based on the analyses in the US, political content only makes up about 6% of what people see on Facebook. And although each person’s News Feed is different, we know even a small percentage of political content can impact someone’s overall experience. The company already offer controls to help you manage what you see in News Feed, such as tools like Favorites which lets you select people and pages you want to prioritize in your News Feed; Snooze to temporarily hide posts from a person, page or group; and the ability to turn off political ads. As they embark on this work, Facebook will share what they learn and the approaches that show the most promise.