Facebook Update Tosses A New Wrench In To Your Newsfeed

The already massive amount of code dedicated to deciding what you see on Facebook and what's skipped has just been given a kick in the pants. Facebook is now working with an element of humanity – another element, that is to say – this time relying on survey information delivered by the everyday user. Questionnaires were completed by Facebook users on which stories they'd rather seen, and the results of these tests are now informing what you end up seeing in your own personal Facebook feed every day.

This newest bit of data crunching is just the latest in a long line of similar systems Facebook uses to assess what you do and do not see in your main Facebook feed at all times. This is different from the privacy blocks and access you're able to get to other users' profile pages and updates – instead, it's a system that controls how fresh your Newsfeed – aka the bit you see when you go to Facebook.com – when you visit it 10,000 times a day.

Facebook updates newsfeed to weed out clickbait

The Newsfeed must not only remain fresh, it must remain free of clutter. Facebook's latest initiative aims to do away with the likes of spam and overly-pushy articles leading you to places you feel a bit TOO compelled to go to.

The great thing about using the average Facebook user for the surveys Facebook has relied on in this most recent round of changes is that they, like you, don't like to be pushed around. Viral nonsense and advertisements disguised as real articles – those aren't going to be as prevalent as they once were.

Above you'll see one of a wide variety of questions asked in Facebook's survey initiative.

We're headed toward a cleaner Facebook all the time. You can read more about this subject via an interview with the Facebook coders who are responsible for this business over at Slate.