Updated Controls for News Feed

ByJacob Frantz, Product Manager

News Feed is a personalized stream of stories that you build from the people and Pages you’ve connected to on Facebook. The goal of News Feed is to show you the stories that matter most to you. To do this, we use ranking to order stories based on how interesting we believe they are to you: specifically, whom you tend to interact with, and what kinds of content you tend to like and comment on.

We’re always working to improve and personalize your News Feed experience. We know that ultimately you’re the only one who truly knows what is most meaningful to you and that is why we want to give you more ways to control what you see. Last year we announced some new ways to control what you see in News Feed. Today we are announcing even better tools for you to actively shape and improve the experience. We’ve redesigned and expanded Facebook’s News Feed Preferences to give you more control.

Select friends and Pages to see first

To help prioritize stories, and make sure you don’t miss posts from particular friends and Pages, you can now select which friends and Pages you would like to see at the top of your News Feed.

Within News Feed Preferences, tap on a friend’s profile picture to see their posts first. You will then see any new stories they’ve shared since your last visit to Facebook at the top of News Feed, with a star in the top right of their post so you know why they’re at the top. You can scroll down to see the rest of your News Feed normally.

Find new Pages to connect to

Helping you find new Pages to follow can help you connect with publishers, artists and businesses you might be interested in. Based on the types of Pages you’ve liked in the past, you can discover new Pages in order to get more of the stories you care about.

Select which friends and Pages to follow or unfollow

With an updated design of the tools we previously launched, you can now see a list of the top people, Pages and groups that you’ve seen in your News Feed over the past week, and choose to unfollow any friend, Page or group if you don’t want to see their updates. You can also see who you’ve unfollowed in the past and choose to re-follow them at any time.

To get to News Feed Preferences, tap More in the bottom right hand corner of your mobile app. News Feed Preferences are located under Settings. You can come back at any time to update your choices.

The new ways to control your News Feed will be available today on iOS and will be rolling out on Android and desktop over the coming weeks.