How Facebook changes its algorithm to regain the upper hand on TikTok?


Mathieu Grumiaux

June 16, 2022 at 11:20 a.m.

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Facebook © Shuterstock

© Shutterstock

The social network, seriously challenged by the Chinese application, has a battle plan to relaunch and win back its users.

Meta has had TikTok in its sights for some time now, and Mark Zuckerberg has made tackling the youth-favorite social network a top priority for the company.

Facebook suffers a little more every day from competition from TikTok

If there is no danger yet, Meta’s products are suffering from competition with their Chinese rival. The population of Facebook is aging and the social network has even just recorded a significant loss of subscribers, which had never happened since the creation of the platform. Facebook also suffers from a damaged image, weakened by numerous scandals such as Cambridge Analytica or the massive spread of fake news barely moderated by the company’s teams.

Instagram is in direct competition with TikTok and had to catch up by copying its rival with the Reels format, now fully integrated into the social network and pushed into users’ news feed, whether they follow the proposed creators or not. .

The great strength of TikTok, however, remains its recommendation algorithm, which analyzes the tastes of its users in a very relevant way and which makes it possible to capture more and more of their screen time by offering an uninterrupted flow of videos. Facebook has clearly identified the problem and is planning serious technical updates on its platform.

The News Feed will become a “discovery engine”, powered by Reels

It is in a memo that Tom Alison, head of the Facebook application, tells his teams that the news feed will be seriously reviewed in the coming months to integrate more content recommendations ” not connected to your various followed accounts or to your loved ones. Facebook wants to present itself more as a “ discovery engine and will, for this, further integrate the Reels in each newsfeed.

Conversely, Facebook members may see less content posted by their friends, which could cause some frustration among regulars.

The blue-thumb social network also wants to bring Messenger back into the application, to allow users to share content discovered on Facebook more quickly without having to go through another application.

This strategic change is not without risk. Facebook’s recommendation algorithms have long been accused of fostering the spread of fake news and hateful content, and turning the News Feed into ” discovery engine could accentuate this phenomenon. Tom Alison is aware of this and promises new, more restrictive rules to avoid this problem, but Facebook has proven time and time again that it has great difficulty in enforcing its own usage policies.

On the same subject :
Meta (Facebook) records colossal losses, but for Mark Zuckerberg, it’s normal

Source : Engadget



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