Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has announced that it is testing several new controls that will allow users and businesses to customize their Facebook News Feed experience. People can now adjust the amount of content they see from friends, family, Groups, and Pages on Facebook as well as the topics they care about in their News Feed Preferences, according to Meta. Facebook is testing Topic Exclusion for News Feed on a small number of advertisers who run ads in English for its business customers. Meta has also revealed its intentions to collaborate with third-party companies.
Favorites, reconnecting, snoozing, and unfollowing will all be made easier to access by the company. Facebook’s new test will initially be available to a small number of users before being rolled out to all eligible users in a phased manner.
Meta is also extending its Topic Exclusion controls for the Facebook News Feed test to a small number of advertisers who run ads in English, as previously mentioned. Advertisers can choose from three different topic categories: news and politics, social issues, and crime and tragedy. When an advertiser chooses one or more topics, their ad will not appear in the News Feeds of people who are interested in those topics.
The Topic Exclusion controls are viewed by Meta as a bridge product, and the company plans to begin testing a new content-based suitability control to address advertisers’ concerns about ads being displayed next to specific topics based on their brand suitability preferences in both Facebook and Instagram feeds. The rollout will begin in 2022, according to the company.
Eventually, Meta plans to collaborate with third-party brand safety partners to develop a solution by the end of 2021 that will verify whether content adjacent to an ad in News Feed aligns with a brand’s viability preferences. In the coming weeks, Meta said, it will begin with a request for proposals.
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