Facebook is rolling out changes to how it decides which posts and links show up in your News Feed.
Rather than relying completely on artificial intelligence, the social media giant says it's been surveying users on what kind of content they like and which friends they want to hear from the most.
"We've historically predicted who people might want to hear from based on signals like how often they interact with a given friend, how many mutual friends they have and whether they mark someone as a close friend," Facebook said in a post on its official blog.
"Now, in addition to understanding these signals, we've begun surveying people on Facebook to ask them to list the friends they are closest to. We look at the patterns that emerge from the results, some of which include being tagged in the same photos, continuously reacting and commenting on the same posts and checking-in at the same places - and then use these patterns to inform our algorithm."
A Facebook spokesperson told tech news site Engadget there was no overall trend being picked up by its algorithm previously.
"That's why surveying users and building this model was so important, because it gives us a new signal to capture what may be valuable for people at a more individual, granular level."
Facebook said that wouldn't mean content from distant friends wouldn't show up at all, and the secret algorithm which decides what each individual sees is being constantly updated, depending on how they interact with what's served up.
Another change, also based on the results of surveys with hundreds of thousands of users, will improve the quality of content from community pages.
"We use these responses to identify signs that someone might find a link worth their time. We then combine these factors with information we have about the post, including the type of post, who it's from and the engagement it's received, to more accurately predict whether people are likely to find a link valuable."
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Unlike some big updates in the past, Facebook says the latest changes won't change the balance of content you see from friends and pages - it'll just increase the likelihood you're being delivered content that's worth seeing.
"As we've said in the past, it's not about the amount of time someone spends on Facebook, but rather the quality of time spent."
If it doesn't work for you, there's always the option of viewing posts in chronological order or quitting the site altogether.
Newshub.
