The News Feed Facebook is something that has always existed. We all know his name and we know perfectly well what it is: the main screen that we scroll through every day to find out what friends and family have shared. Now, after 15 years, this section will change its name to “Feed”. This is the announcement released yesterday by Meta, which is making many substantial changes to the platforms it owns.
Feed: Facebook changes the name of its “News Feed” after 15 years
Although it may be almost negligible, the modification of Meta is absolutely revolutionary. After 15 years, the Facebook News Feed becomes simply “Feed”. An important name change, which however does not make any particular changes to the design of the platform’s interface. “It’s just a name change to better reflect the different content people see on their Feed”, commented the Facebook spokesperson. Dami Oyefeso. And this confirms what has been said so far: the name change “does not have a wider impact on the App experience“.
Yet it is clear that this change reflects something. In particular, it would appear to be Facebook’s messy relationship with news distribution. According to some research, disinformation gets more engagement on the platform, even compared to news based on real facts. For this very reason, regulators have looked at how big tech companies algorithmically classify content in their Feeds. No wonder, then, that Meta has chosen to work to reduce the amount of political content that appears on users’ home pages.
Clearly, regardless of the topic of reference, it is clear that one would expect to find all the updates in a section called “News Feed”. Yet, Meta has decided to upset everyone’s plans. Now we will have only – and only – the Facebook Feed.