Facebook is changing the name 'News Feed', its main feature that allows users to view content shared by their family and friends. In the future, this feature will be known as 'Feed'.
The new name was announced by Facebook via a tweet on Twitter. The name News Feed itself has been used since the feature was first introduced 15 years ago, as quoted from The Verge, Wednesday (16/2/2022).
This change was announced just months after Mark Zuckerberg announced the change of Facebook's name to Meta to emphasize the company's focus on developing the metaverse.
On the one hand, this change is quite large considering that Facebook is one of the most widely used social media platforms worldwide, and Feeds are its main feature.
On the other hand, Facebook spokesperson Dami Oyefoso said this change reflects the diversity of content that users see in their Feeds. Oyefoso added that this name change will not change the user experience.
This name change is also likely to reduce public confusion. Even though it is known as News Feed, the portion of news that is shared via Facebook feed is only slightly compared to other content.
Facebook also has a complicated relationship with the distribution of news on its platform. The results show that misinformation on Facebook gets more engagement than fact-based reports.
Even Facebook's own research has found that its News Feed algorithm can lead politicians to take more extreme positions. To address this, Meta says they are working to reduce the appearance of political content in users' feeds.
Even so, Facebook does not stop realizing its ambition as a source of information and news. In 2019, they launched the Facebook News tab in the United States and now it has spread to several countries.
A few days ago, they launched Facebook News in France. So changing the name of News Feed to Feed can distinguish user posts from actual news from Facebook News.