New News Feed

- Augustus's Richard Fitzgerald

Every year Mark Zuckerberg takes to his Facebook profile and announces a personal challenge he will take on. The CEO has visited every US state, run 365 miles, built an AI for his home, read 25 books and learned Mandarin. This year, on January 5, he announced he would “fix Facebook”. This is in recognition of the ‘fake news’ backlash the company has received, and he acknowledged it must take some responsibility for the influence that the media people consume has on society.

Facebook’s mission was updated recently to from “Making the world more open and connected” to “Give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.” This was because the previous mission didn’t encourage any positive outcome from being connected.

The reaction was positive. People understood Zuckerberg’s view and some were impressed with his leadership skills.

Then on January 12 he posted again. This time he revealed he would he will be changing users’ Facebook feeds to include more of their family and friends’ posts over brand and business content. The purpose was “to improve your well-being”.

The main points are: “The first changes you’ll see will be in news feed, where you can expect to see more from your friends, family and groups.” And “Public content (brands)... should encourage meaningful interactions between people.”