Business

Facebook to show explanations why content shows up on users' news feeds

Company taking steps to add more transparency to its News Feed algorithms.

Written by Catalin Cimpanu, Contributor March 31, 2019 at 6:25 p.m. PT

Facebook why am i seeing this post — Image: Facebook

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Today Facebook announced plans to roll out a new feature that will show short explanations on why people are seeing the posts they are seeing in their news feeds.

This new feature is named "Why am I seeing this post?" and it will slowly become available to all users within the next days.

Also: Facebook slammed over covert app that pays teenagers for data

Users will be able to access it by selecting it from the drop-down menu that is available in the top-right corner of every post.

The new feature will show the origin of a post --because of an existing friendship; membership in a group; or because the user liked a page, and which.

The "Why am I seeing this post?" feature will also show relevant stats that have contributed to Facebook's decision to showing a particular post before others --such as the user liking or commenting on previous posts from a user/group/page; or this post being more popular than other similar posts made by the specific user/group/page.

Quick actions will be available so that users can either unfollow a user or page; set a user or page's posts to "See First;" or adjust overall news feed preferences.

These quick actions were introduced following user feedback while the feature was in limited testing.

Similar improvements were also made to the "Why am I seeing this ad?" feature, which Facebook first rolled out in 2014, and on which the "Why am I seeing this post?" feature is based on.

"'Why am I seeing this ad?' will now provide details such as when the advertiser uploaded the information or if the advertiser worked with another marketing partner to run the ad," Facebook said.

"Both of these updates are part of our ongoing investment in giving people more context and control across Facebook," it said.