Facebook's News Feed Change May Hurt Publishers

Facebook is changing its News Feed to prioritize posts from users' friends, possibly at the expense of publishers that rely on referral traffic from the site, reports CNN Money.

At the same time, the company on Wednesday is publishing its "News Feed Values," a new document that outlines its approach to the ranking algorithm.

The #1 value is "connecting people with their friends and family," the document says. The #2 value is providing information like news stories and #3 is providing entertainment like Facebook Live videos and funny photos.

The document also describes News Feed as a "platform for all ideas" and says "we don't favor specific kinds of sources -- or ideas."

Last month, the company was scrutinized for signs of anti-conservative bias after Gizmodo reported that former workers suppressed some conservative news stories from the site's Trending Topics box.
Facebook denied the allegations of bias but acknowledged that it could do more to gain users' trust.

"I think it became clear that we needed to be more proactive," Adam Mosseri, the head of News Feed, said in an interview with CNNMoney Tuesday.

News Feed is the beating heart of Facebook. The algorithm looks at likes, comments, the recency of a post, and other factors, and ranks stories accordingly for each user.

The move is sure to stir more anxiety among big and small publishers. Media companies now depend on Facebook for a big chunk of monthly traffic and are sensitive to every tweak to the News Feed. Facebook also recently started paying a number of news outlets -- including CNN -- to produce videos for Facebook Live.