As Facebook faces a new PR crisis in the aftermath of the latest Facebook Files investigative report series, the corporation is also attempting to bring more transparency into its operations, as well as supervision over how its algorithms choose what users see in their News Feed on a daily basis.
The Social Media giant provided a comprehensive tutorial on how its News Feed algorithm works earlier this year, including major ranking variables that determine reach. And yesterday, Facebook provided another insight, this time it focused on the kinds of posts it wants to limit in the Feed, which do not necessarily violate company rules but will receive reduced reach for a variety of reasons.
The company says, “Our content distribution guidelines outline some of the types of content that receive reduced distribution in News Feed. Our enforcements to reduce problematic content in News Feed are rooted in our commitment to the values of responding to people’s direct feedback, incentivising publishers to invest in high-quality content and fostering a safer community.”
Facebook review does not disclose any new fact, however it shares a little context into how its system handles content controls. The primary objective is on possible false and controversial content, with Facebook attempting to drop the visibility of posts that fit into some or all of the following categories:
Posts that have videos with low quality: Like videos posted as “live broadcasts” which Facebook expects to be static, animated, looping, polls-only, or pre-recorded, as well as static photos published as “videos” with no dynamic audio.
Facebook Pages that are likely to be spam: The company sees certain pages may be propagating malicious content and/or online scams.
Sensational health content and commercial health postings: This includes claims of “miracle cures,” as well as content that aims to promote items or services based on health-related claims.
Links to suspected cloaking domains: Domains which mask their source by covering up the name of the landing page or web page, in an attempt to avoid Facebook’s vetting process.
Links to web pages that require unneeded user data: This consists of websites which ask for personal information prior to displaying its content.
Links to web pages that require unneeded user data: This consists of websites which ask for personal information prior to displaying its content.
Low-quality browsing experiences: Sites having issues such as poor mobile display.
Low-quality comments: Facebook’s technology will invalidate comments that contain no words (i.e. simply a username tag) and/or text blocks that have been clipped and pasted.
Low-quality events: The company will limit the visibility of event pages that are either incomplete or come from Pages that have proven evidence of deceitful practice.
Clickbait links: That is, posts that are fraudulent and which attempts to entice people to click on them.
Comments that are likely to be reported or hidden and Posts that clearly request engagement (e.g., shares, comments, likes) for reasons other than a specific call to action are considered engagement bait; are also part.
This initiative seems logical, and the consequences would be modest for people who have authentic profiles and pages. However it’s worth noting that Social site will punish reach for pages that give a bad mobile experience. It’s also worth mentioning the ‘engagement bait’ regulation, which some people have unintentionally broken in the past.
According to Facebook, engagement bait in this context refers to:
“Posts that explicitly request engagement (such as votes, shares, comments, tags, likes or other reactions) for purposes other than a specific call to action (such as seeking help to find missing people or property, raising money or sharing a petition) on the Facebook platform. For example, this doesn’t include posts that ask people to engage in order to show that they do or do not support an issue, or to share time-sensitive information regarding natural disasters and life-threatening events.”
According to Facebook, user feedback indicates that users dislike messages like these, which prompt them to interact by like, sharing, commenting, and doing other actions on posts.
This is also distantly related to contest promotions, as Facebook’s rules state:
“Personal Timelines and friend connections must not be used to administer promotions (ex: “share on your Timeline to enter” or “share on your friend’s Timeline to get additional entries”, and “tag your friends in this post to enter” are not permitted).”
Those in charge of administering engagement-focused contests or promotions should make certain that they are well-versed in all of these areas.
Furthermore, Facebook will degrade content from domains with limited original content, those that have previously posted fact-checked falsehoods, and news stories without obvious authorship (such as the author’s name connected to the post).
So, while Facebook has a variety of tools to find spammers, the only real worry for genuine creators is ensuring openness in your content strategy and not using duplicating content on your website.
That itself, if you are authentic, should not be an issue in the first place, but to be clear, these are the types of activities that can result in your Facebook impact to be limited. However, Facebook users are choosing many tools just to get more engagement. It has become so challenging to get organic growth so users are searching for opportunities to buy Facebook likes from EarthWeb or from other sources to grow quickly.
