Docs: Facebook tested turning off News Feed ranking for 0.05% of users in Feb. 2018 and found engagement dropped, Groups content rose, and ad views increased

Big Technology 2021-10-27 Alex Kantrowitz

Context & Ripple Effects

Facebook had already tested separating non-promoted Page posts into a secondary feed, a change that reduced engagement for some media outlets. Its later global ranking tests sought direct feedback on what users considered valuable, making the newly documented trade-off between engagement, Groups distribution and ad views material to how Facebook evaluates News Feed changes.

First-order effects

Facebook's 2018 test shows that removing News Feed ranking lowered overall engagement while increasing the prominence of Groups content and the number of ad views.
Advertisers benefited from more ad views in the unranked experience, even as Facebook recorded weaker user engagement.

Second-order effects

The result gives Facebook a measurable conflict among engagement, community-content distribution and advertising exposure rather than a single ranking target.
Publishers dependent on News Feed distribution face further evidence that ranking changes can shift attention away from Page content, as the earlier secondary-feed experiment did for some media.

Third-order effects

If Facebook continues to optimize across these competing measures, News Feed ranking is likely to become a more explicitly multi-objective system, informed by the user-value feedback tests as well as engagement and ad delivery.
The pattern shifts platform power toward the operator of recommendation systems: Groups, advertisers and publishers all depend on choices that can redistribute attention without changing their underlying content.

The trend: Social-feed platforms are moving from engagement-only optimization toward balancing user feedback, community activity and advertising delivery in ranking systems.

Discussion

@daphnehk Daphne Keller on x
Internal experiment with removing algorithmic ranking and showing a mostly chronological newsfeed produced lots of problems. It did apparently make FB more revenue, though. https://bigtechnology.substack.com/ ...
@deaneckles Dean Eckles on x
Nice example of non-normative uses of features. This person “hides” posts in their feed when they've read them, perhaps as one would in email. https://t.co/1ZN1awr8yI https://t.co/20vT5WKBsD
@kantrowitz Alex Kantrowitz on x
New from me: I just joined the consortium with the leaked Facebook documents. Now I believe it should be dissolved. We need to make getting these documents out to the public the top priority. The people deserve to see them. https://www.niemanlab.org/... via @NiemanLab
@anildash Anil Dash on x
Two years before Facebook decided to assign more value to content & interactions that make people angry, we had been building a tool that rewarded & highlighted good, humane interactions on the platform and the FB team killed the access we had been using to enable the feature. ht…
@karaswisher Kara Swisher on x
Hard to turn a damning set of documents from the Facebook whistleblower into an ignorant screed that lands zero punches and makes you feel sorry for the Mark Zuckerberg, but this persistent numpty has done it again. Back on the porch, Kevin, and let the big dogs handle this one. …
@attorneynora Nora Benavidez on x
Judicious redaction & wide dissemination for public access. Most of the world is largely unaware of the Facebook Papers. Access for a handful of bespoke reporters does nothing other than provide experts like me a firehouse in which a lot gets lost trickling out to a wider public.…
@gillibrandny Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand on x
The biggest takeaway from the Facebook Papers is that Facebook has repeatedly chosen profits and power over protecting privacy and users. It's long past time to hold them and all of Big Tech accountable. We need a Data Protection Agency. https://twitter.com/...
@noahshachtman Noah Shachtman on x
This is the whole ballgame, right? It's one thing for Facebook to value engagement. It's a whole other thing for fB to deliberately promote stories that provoke anger. How do Section 230-style protections still apply when fB makes such obvious editorial decisions? https://twitter…
@kantrowitz Alex Kantrowitz on x
New: A Facebook experiment in 2018 effectively deleted the News Feed ranking algorithm. It didn't end well. https://bigtechnology.substack.com/ ... via @BigTechnology
@ezranbc Ezra Kaplan on x
As a member of this consortium, I agree, these documents belong in the hands of the public. https://www.niemanlab.org/...
@issielapowsky Issie Lapowsky on x
Zuckerberg called the Facebook Papers (without naming it) “a coordinated effort to selectively use leaked documents to paint a false picture of our company” on the earnings call just now.
@washingtonpost @washingtonpost on x
Since 2018, the algorithm has elevated posts that encourage interaction, such as ones popular with friends. This broadly prioritizes posts by friends and family and viral memes, but also divisive content. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... https://twitter.com/...
@blackamazon @blackamazon on x
Its not “the algorithm” it's almost always a conscious manual choice The algorithm just mechanized it https://twitter.com/...
@jeffbercovici Jeff Bercovici on x
Stories like this show the danger of a Facebook that's worried it has stopped growing. Parents, for the sake of our democracy, please urge your kids to spend 3 hrs/day clicking Facebook https://twitter.com/...
@noupside Renee DiResta on x
“Favoring “controversial” posts — including those that make users angry — could open “the door to more spam/abuse/clickbait inadvertently,” a staffer, whose name was redacted, wrote in one of the internal documents. A colleague responded, “It's possible.” 😡 https://twitter.com/..…
@willoremus Will Oremus on x
“The algorithm” sounds mysterious & menacing. But the key choices behind Facebook's news feed are simpler than you might think, albeit w/ profound ripple effects. This graphic explainer visualizes how human decisions shape what we see—and how we post. https://www.washingtonpost.c…
@brendannyhan Brendan Nyhan on x
Partial versus general equilibrium - at first, people scroll more trying to find more content they like (seeing more ads in the process), but presumably they use platform less/quit more over time https://twitter.com/...
@nicholasvinocur Nicholas Vinocur on x
FB's stock is still close to historic highs amid a dump of internal documents, whistleblower testimony and a barrage of global media coverage. Investors are looking at all this, including regulation, and not finding anything that would significantly harm the business https://twit…
@jasonkuznicki Jason Kuznicki on x
My subjective experience of Facebook's algorithm for the last few years was that it was consistently showing me the Trumpiest content it could find. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
@tripgabriel Trip Gabriel on x
‘Anger and hate is the easiest way to grow on Facebook,’ Haugen said on Monday. https://twitter.com/...
@carlquintanilla Carl Quintanilla on x
Amazing piece about how Facebook's algorithm had a favorite child: the “angry” emoji. $FB (via @WillOremus) https://twitter.com/...
@evan_greer Evan Greer on x
Interesting and good reminder that we barely know how any of this stuff works or doesn't work https://twitter.com/...
@ericgoldman Eric Goldman on x
Regulators would love to abolish Facebook's newsfeed. Florida & Texas have already passed laws making it illegal, & Congress is evaluating proposals to eliminate it too. But would FB's users benefit from that? https://bigtechnology.substack.com/ ... https://twitter.com/...
@roddylindsay Roddy Lindsay on x
The takeaway should be that humans are perfectly capable of curating noisy chronological content feeds, even with the limited controls they have today. Engagement-maximizing (algorithmic) or noisy (chrono) is a false choice...the actual choice is AI-curated vs. user-curated.
@roddylindsay Roddy Lindsay on x
We don't yet have access to the original study, but this take reads like it was written by an FB lobbyist. Removing AI manipulation from News Feed leads to a 50% increase in intentional user curation of feed stories (hides.) That's A Good Thing! https://twitter.com/...
@hkanji Hussein Kanji on x
Without a News Feed algorithm, engagement on Facebook drops significantly, people hide 50% more posts, content from Facebook Groups rises to the top, and — surprisingly — Facebook makes even more money from users scrolling through the News Feed. https://bigtechnology.substack.com…
@dlberes Damon Beres on x
Points to ⁦@Kantrowitz⁩ for: “Though I joined this consortium on Monday, I'm in favor of its dissolution and the speedy, responsible release of all Haugen's documents to the public” https://bigtechnology.substack.com/ ...
@juliettekayyem Juliette Kayyem on x
The consistent theme in FB docs is that anything related to hate or right wing extremism was given a “First Amendment” allowance and anything remotely progressive was filtered through a “politically neutral” veto. Every single time. #FacebookFiles https://twitter.com/...
@ditzkoff Dave Itzkoff on x
introducing our new corporate mascot, Joe Facebook, the cool cartoon character in sunglasses who posts about election conspiracy theories https://twitter.com/...
@fbajak Frank Bajak on x
Why did Zuckerberg alter Facebook's algorithms in 2018, making toxic content viral? One explanation: Facebook had been hemorrhaging and losing teens and young adults for years in its richest markets. The situation was dire. @BarbaraOrtutay https://apnews.com/...
@esaagar Saagar Enjeti on x
The only FB story that really matters is their internal data showing it's mostly a boomer product fading in relevancy. Yet it dominates national/politico conversation of tech. The future is not FB, even they will tell you so
@stevesi Steven Sinofsky on x
Documents reveal internal fury and dissent over site's policies https://www.nbcnews.com/... // This way more balanced view shows some things: • lots of docs, but clearly carefully chosen • still no focus on role of Media as source for sharing • big companies are complex
@modestproposal1 Modest Proposal on x
Here's how FB thinks young adults view the various social apps https://twitter.com/...
@mattrosoff Matt Rosoff on x
From a $FB shareholder's perspective, this is probably the most damning revelation in the Facebook Papers. Insta troubles particularly. https://twitter.com/...

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