Organizing users’ News Feeds is one of the biggest challenges that Facebook faces as its sifts through the everyday noise of friends’ posts to try and separate the relevant from the mundane. Facebook’s Ads Product Manager Fidji Simo has indicated to ABC News that the company will soon let users specify why they choose to hide News Feed posts and advertisements.
For instance, if enough users marked a piece of content as offensive, Facebook would preemptively hide the post on others users feeds. The usefulness will run two ways, as it helps Facebook increase the relevancy of both its product and the ads it runs alongside it.
Simo said the changes are set to be tested soon and will start trickling down to users over the next three to four months.
The feature would presumably resemble existing options presented when hiding an ad on the sidebar: Uninteresting, Misleading, Sexually explicit, Against my views, Offensive, Repetitive and Other.
Facebook brought its Exchange ad retargeting program, which draws on users’ browsing histories, to the News Feed back in March. The move came shortly after the company announced a drastic redesign of users’ feeds, adding more customizability and larger images.
Update: WebSonic.nl is reporting that it is seeing the prompt already:
Image credit: Brand X Pictures
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