Facebook to use direct user feedback into News Feed ranking process

Based on people's collective feedback, the social networking giant will also show them more content about the topics they're more interested in - such as Cooking, Sports or Politics.

Facebook will now utilize direct feedback of users to understand the content they find most relevant and valuable and then incorporate this feedback into the News Feed ranking.

"Our goal with News Feed is to arrange the posts from friends, Groups and Pages you follow to show you what matters most to you at the top of your feed. Our algorithm uses thousands of signals to rank posts for your News Feed with this goal in mind. This spring, we're expanding on our work to use direct feedback from people who use Facebook to understand the content people find most valuable," the company said on Thursday.

Facebook already uses surveys to show people more content they want to see and to better understand how meaningful different friends, Pages, and Groups are to them and based on the responses, the company updates its ranking algorithms.

To build on these surveys, Facebook will now ask new questions about the content people find valuable as well as the content people don't enjoy seeing in their News Feed. To make News Feed better, the company will soon test new ways to get more specific feedback from people about the posts they're seeing.

For instance, Facebook is running a series of global tests that will survey people to understand which posts they find inspirational and incorporate their responses as a signal in News Feed ranking.

Image Credit: Facebook

Based on people's collective feedback, the social networking giant will also show them more content about the topics they're more interested in - such as Cooking, Sports or Politics.

Over the next few months, Facebook will also work to better understand what kinds of contents they may want to see less of or the posts and comments that detract from their News Feed experience.

In addition, Facebook will be testing a new post design to make it easier to give feedback directly on a post. If people find a post irrelevant, problematic or irritating, they can tap the 'X' option in the upper right corner of the post to hide it from their News Feed and they won't see such posts in the future.

"Over the next few months, we'll test new ways to get more specific feedback from people about the posts they're seeing, and we'll use that feedback to make News Feed better. While engagement will continue to be one of many types of signals we use to rank posts in News Feed, we believe these additional insights can provide a more complete picture of the content people find valuable, and we'll share more as we learn from these tests," Facebook said.