Meta AI System Reveals How It Determines What Content You View on Facebook and Instagram
If you don’t switch to a chronological timeline on Facebook, the content you see on your timeline may appear random. However, Meta has now provided a detailed explanation of how its AI systems determine the posts that appear on our Facebook and Instagram feeds. The company has introduced 22 card systems for these platforms, which outline the ranking process of its AI systems for Feed, Stories, and Reels. Each card provides insights into specific aspects of Meta’s platform. For example, Meta explains that its AI system for Facebook Feeds begins by collecting all possible posts from friends and Pages you follow.
The system then takes into account various input signals, such as who created the post, how you’ve interacted with them, and how many of your friends have liked the post, if any. All these aspects help the AI to categorize the posts, based on which you find the most relevant and valuable ones, and then display them in your feed according to their score. The card systems also show how you can edit what you see on the platforms and link to instructions on things like unfollowing a person or group, and how to click “show more” or “show less” in a message to indicate if you like or dislike a certain topic.
In a post announcing the cards’ release, Nick Clegg, Meta’s director of global affairs, listed the tools you can use to customize your experience on the company’s platforms. In addition to the two tools mentioned above, Facebook and Instagram have centralized menus with editing controls called Feed Preferences and Suggested Content Control Center. Clegg also said that Meta is testing a new feature on Instagram that lets you indicate whether you’re “interested” in a featured reel in the Reels tab, so the app can show you more similar content. Currently, you can only indicate whether you are “Not interested” in a specific puck. Additionally, he said Meta is working on making the “show more” and “show less” features more prominent.
Meta has raised the lid on the functionality of its algorithms before the European Union starts enacting the Digital Markets Act in 2024. The new law requires online services like Facebook and Instagram to be transparent about the technologies behind their recommendation algorithms. It also requires platforms to provide chronological feeds and prohibits ads that target you based on your religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity or political affiliation. Earlier this year, Meta also released a new version of the “Why am I seeing this ad?” a tool that provides more transparency to boost your operations to its ad matching software.
