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In recent months, Facebook has been making efforts to improve transparency into how the News Feed works. Most recently, they announced the addition of Content Distribution Guidelines. These new guidelines, located in the Transparency Center, explain some of the reasons that certain posts are not removed from the site but have their distribution suppressed.

While the new guidelines do not provide too much detail on how a demotion works (we know machine learning is involved, but it’s not clear how much distribution is affected and exactly how the mechanics work), they do provide some insights into things to avoid in order to ensure strong distribution. The rules are also an interesting study in where the company is “drawing the line” for malicious posting.

Here are the three “principle reasons” Facebook gives for reduced distribution, along with some of the examples provided deeper in the site:

1. “Responding to People’s Direct Feedback” – Facebook users indicate specifically what they like and don’t like seeing, and the News Feed changes based on this. This also includes things like spam pages, clickbait, and engagement bait.

2. “Incentivizing Creators to Invest in High-Quality and Accurate Content” – Facebook is trying to provide incentives that encourage engaging, interesting, and high-quality posts. On the flip side, the app will demote content such as that from domains with limited original content, fact-checked misinformation, and news articles lacking transparent authorship.

3. “Fostering a Safer Community” – Facebook says that, regardless of intent, some posts are problematic and will be made more difficult to encounter. This can include things like posts from repeat offenders, unsafe reporting about suicide, or those that indicate “suspicious virality.”

An example of “engagement bait” provided by Facebook’s Transparency Center.

Why it matters

For most social media marketers, there isn’t too much to be worried about here unless you are engaging in some pretty questionable tactics. However, these provide a handy reference and a reminder about providing real value in social. It’s helpful to remember what Facebook considers “good” and “bad” content. The News Feed wants to promote high-quality, engaging posts from trustworthy sources, that align with user needs, and foster safety and community.

This is, of course, another chapter in the on-going trials of Facebook overall. The company faces widespread criticism, skepticism, and legal issues in several different areas. So this is one effort to provide clarity into how distribution works to help with these ongoing challenges.

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Here are a few more shareworthy items we’ve been reading this month…

Channel Updates & News:

• Introducing A New Way to Say “Happy Birthday” on Snapchat (Snapchat blog)

• Breaking Down How Instagram Search Works (IG blog)

• How LinkedIn is using AI to fight unauthorized data scraping (LinkedIn blog)

• Introducing “The Upload,” the first podcast from YouTube (YouTube blog)

• Twitter Spaces Getting a Recording Option (Social Media Today)

• Twitter Experiments with New Visual Editor, Incorporating Fleets Tools (Social Media Today)

• Instagram Adds New 'Map Search' Tool to Maximize Business Discovery (Social Media Today)

• Instagram is Developing a New 'Montage' Feature to Convert Stories to Reels, New 'Favorites' Listing (Social Media Today)

• LinkedIn Expands Professional 'Learning Hub', Makes 40 Popular Course Available for Free (Social Media Today)

• Introducing Facebook Fantasy Games (Facebook blog)

• TikTok World is a free virtual conference on Sept. 28 (TikTok blog)

• Clubhouse rolling out “spatial audio” feature (Clubhouse blog)

• New "Wave" feature coming to Clubhouse (Clubhouse blog)

Stories & Analysis

• The Wall Street Journal’s 5-part “Facebook Files” (See additional commentary here, and Facebook’s response here)

• LinkedIn's Employee Well-Being Report (LinkedIn blog)

• Taylor Swift is a Model Community Manager (SproutSocial blog)

• Visualizing the global #ExtremeWeather conversation on Twitter (Twitter blog)

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