It doesn’t refer to Ferguson, Ice Bucket Challenge videos or a solemn responsibility to bring you news that really matters, but Facebook does seem to be addressing concerns about the service’s ability to surface timely, important news stories.
Here’s what software engineer Erich Owens and engineering manager David Vickrey wrote in a post today outlining more changes to the News Feed:
Our goal with News Feed is to show everyone the right content at the right time so they don’t miss the stories that are important to them. We’ve heard feedback that there are some instances where a post from a friend or a Page you are connected to is only interesting at a specific moment, for example when you are both watching the same sports game, or talking about the season premiere of a popular TV show. There are also times when a post that is a day or two old may not be relevant to you anymore.
They say they’ll fix these problems and surface more relevant posts by emphasizing two factors: whether a topic is trending, and how soon people like and comment on a posts after they’re published.
So if lots of people are posting about a breaking news story, presumably Facebook will recognize that as trending and bring more stories about it to users (testing has shown that this results in 6 percent more engagement, Owens and Vickrey note). And if all the activity surrounding that story takes place at night and then drops off completely, presumably Facebook will better recognize that it might not be relevant to people the following afternoon.
“We will be rolling out these changes gradually and do not expect posts to see significant changes in distribution as a result of this update,” Owens and Vickrey say.
Facebook took some criticism during the protests in Ferguson, Missouri, following the police shooting of Michael Brown. This latest News Feed tweak seems designed to reduce the usefulness chasm between Twitter and Facebook during breaking news.
Related: On the Facebookification of Twitter and the Twitterfication of Facebook
