Facebook changes news feed to boost videos

Facebook said on Thursday that it would be tweaking its algorithms to feature some videos more prominently in its news feed, as it attempts to compete more directly with other video streaming platforms.

{mosads}The firm explained that videos from pages that people intentionally seek out will now be prioritized to be appear higher in a user’s news feed. Facebook will also prioritize showing other videos from the same pages that users deliberately navigate to.

“As we’ve said, watching video on Facebook has the power to drive conversations, and News Feed remains a place people discover and watch videos,” the company explained in a post announcing the tweaks. “Engaging videos that not only bring people together, but drive repeat viewership and engagement, will do well in News Feed.”

The move is Facebook’s latest step to prioritize videos on its platform. In August, it introduced Watch, a platform designed to let users more easily watch videos within Facebook’s mobile apps, TV apps and on computers.

The company has made other changes, some announced and others not, to prioritize different types of videos on its platforms. Facebook has incentivized users over the past year to post more live videos, longer form videos and videos generally. Users have picked up on this, in some cases even posting pictures as videos in an attempt to game Facebook’s algorithms.

The firm is more directly trying to compete with video platforms like YouTube, as opposed to just competing with other social media.