Facebook Improves News Feed With More Options

Facebook is adding new newsfeed options, such as “Comment on posts.”

Facebook is updating its service with a few changes, including the ability to control who can comment on your posts. Additionally, it will make it easier to restore chronological order to News Feed content that is currently appearing algorithmically.

The social network founded by Mark Zuckerberg announced today that users would have control over who can comment on their posts. Public, Friends or just those profiles and pages that have been tagged are the available options.

As The Guardian notes, the change follows an Australian court decision holding news media companies liable for users’ defamatory comments on their public Facebook pages. The difference is likely to be welcomed by media organizations and other popular Facebook profiles that have struggled with comment moderation.

Elsewhere, Facebook simplifies how content appears in News Feeds by allowing users to choose between chronological and algorithmic order. The chronological order was used until 2009, when an algorithmic order replaced it.

While the option to return to “latest posts first” remained in a menu, it has been moved to a new “Feed Filters Bar” at the top of the News Feed. Additionally, users can access the menu to prioritize posts from up to 30 friends or specific pages; this was introduced in October.

Additionally, Facebook will provide additional context for posts from people and pages users do not follow via the “Why am I seeing this” link. This section will describe how the content is relevant to you, such as whether you previously interacted with a similar post.

Facebook stated that the new features would initially be available to Android users, with an iOS update following shortly after that.

 

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