Insta
Facebook’s New Changes To Its News Feed Might Cause Losses Of $23 Billion
Swarajya Staff
Jan 15, 2018, 05:01 PM | Updated 05:01 PM IST
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Facebook seemed on the way to lose $23 billion in stock value after it announced proposed changes to its News Feed that would give result in users seeing fewer updates from from businesses, brands and media and more from family and friends. The move is aimed to make the social media network more "meaningful".
The social media behemoth's shares fell 4 per cent hours after Facebook's chief executive officer (CEO) Mark Zuckerberg announced the changes, The Sun reported.
This might result in Facebook witnessing its worst financial position in over three months – while Zuckerberg may lose $3.3 billion of his personal net worth.
"One of our big focus areas for 2018 is making sure the time we all spend on Facebook is time well spent. We built Facebook to help people stay connected and bring us closer together with the people that matter to us," Zuckerberg posted on Facebook late on Thursday.
The CEO said that Facebook recieved feedback from the community that public content – posts from businesses, brands and media – has been crowding out personal moments.
"We're making a major change to how we build Facebook. I'm changing the goal I give our product teams from focusing on helping you find relevant content to helping you have more meaningful social interactions," he said.
"As we roll this out, you will see less public content like posts from businesses, brands, and media. And the public content you see more will be held to the same standard – it should encourage meaningful interactions between people," Zuckerberg added.
This proposal fuelled fears that people may spend less time on the site, causing stock to suddenly plunge.
However, Zuckerberg did admit that the new changes at first may not succeed, but believes that it is important for users to have more meaningful social interactions.
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