Facebook revamps News Feed to weed out ‘spammy content’

Asad Awan, head of public connections and monetization at Facebook, revealed in a blogpost last week that Facebook Pages had been redesigned to make it “simpler for public figures and creators to build community and achieve their business objectives”. Alongside features that are aimed at improving safety by detecting “spammy content and impersonator accounts”, the dedicated News Feed feature has also been revamped.

“We are bringing the power of News Feed to Pages for the first time. Now Pages can discover and join conversations, follow trends, interact with peers and engage with fans. The dedicated News Feed will also suggest new connections — other public figures, Pages, Groups and trending content that a Page or public figure cares about,” Asad wrote.

He added that in order to make Page conversations more visible to a wider audience, comments from public figures will be bumped up to the top of the comments section.

In terms of the improved safety and integrity features, Asad said the social media giant was improving its ability to detect activity that isn’t allowed on the platform, “including hate speech, violent, sexual or spammy content and impersonation”. He added, “We are continuing to expand the visibility of a verified badge to make it easier to identify posts and comments from authentic Pages and profiles. A verified Page’s comment on another Page’s public post, may appear higher in the comments section and be visible in News Feed.”