Prior to our Wednesday night class, I was completely unaware that Facebook had the power to control and rate the content onour newsfeed.It is fascinating to think how Facebook controls what it thinks is “high quality content” to be displayed on newsfeeds across the world.
Facebook is crossing privacy boundaries, limiting our access to information and making it significantly harder for less known brands to become well known. Facebook shouldn’t have the right to be able to determine what is considered high or low quality content. Each user should be able to determine what is displayed on there personal news fed.
Although Facebook has proven that this formula has increased activity on Facebook, posts that involve small businesses pages have decreased in value. In fact, it has only 16% of all Page posts are viewed by fans. Facebook should be helping Pages rather than creating another battle for businesses. My father is a small business owner and he has seen a huge impact in receiving social engagement on Facebook in regards to the new formulas. Facebook used to be a platform that helped small business create a name for themselves. Facebook should be empowering these pages instead of only posting what they consider as popular content on our news feeds.
The complicated algorithm that is used to crack the code of finding out what is high quality and low quality content is limiting users access to finding information. I can account for numerous times where I have found a new restaurant or a new activity to do via Facebook. One of my favorite examples is the Color Run. I was completely unaware of the color run before my friends posted stories of the run and what an incredible experience they had. Usually I hate runs, but their stories and pictures convinced me to take part in the event. According to Facebook, my friend’s posts would be categorized, as it would be asking people to join an event.
Facebook had excellent intentions with creating this algorithm formula to devalue memes. They want to decrease spam and provide users with content they find interesting. The fascinating thing about social media is that it is the perfect platform for finding new content to broaden your horizons.
Caitlin Grega 
Great post. You make a lot of good points here, and I absolutely love the ironic meme you posted. So many times, I have looked that those “some-e-cards” and laughed because the image has absolutely nothing to do with the text. It’s simply a “fill-in-the-blank” template that is relatable to other people and will drive likes, shares and comments.
I agree with you when you say that Facebook shouldn’t be able to limit our access to information or determine what is high or low quality content. Social media is an easy and cost-effective way for small businesses/brands to get visibility and the word out there. Big businesses can pay lots of money for advertising and marketing, but small businesses don’t always have the resources to do the same, and it doesn’t help that Facebook is now limiting them even more.
Who is Facebook to say what is or isn’t quality? What is a quality post to one person may seem stupid to the next. Facebook’s algorithms aren’t perfect, and target audiences are sometimes missed.
I’m annoyed that Facebook controls what is posted on my timeline/newsfeed. I would rather see it all and decide for myself what is or isn’t relevant to me. I don’t want to miss out on something because Facebook thinks that’s best. Ultimately, it ends up being an issue of bias.
Interesting point on how Facebook should be helping Pages. I agree. What else do you think they could do to help?
Interesting you brought up small business owners because I didn’t even consider them when I read the article; I thought it was great to force big companies to create great content, but it does place those smaller businesses at a huge disadvantage.
I also wasn’t aware that Facebook decided what I wanted to see on my newsfeed. Maybe, Facebook should just let us be? It’s highly improbable, but I’m sure it would make a lot of people happier.
I really like your point about how Facebook should not decide what is high quality versus low quality. This is another example of something that drives me away from Facebook. Personally I think the less involved they are, the better.