‘Why am I seeing this post?’ Facebook will ask for you and give answer Facebook is also updating its “Why am I seeing this ad?” feature to expand information shared with people about the ads they see

SNS Web | New Delhi | April 3, 2019: Facebook will finally start telling us why we see certain posts appearing on out feed. The social networking giant is set to launch a button, “Why am I seeing this post?”, which will explain users why the particular post arrived in their news feed.

“News Feed is always personalized to you — and starting today you’ll have even more information and control over your experience,” Ramya Sethuraman, Product Manager, said in a blog.

She said Facebook was introducing “Why am I seeing this post?” to “help you better understand and more easily control what you see from friends, Pages and Groups in your News Feed”.

Clicking on the button will show information about various data that help Facebook decide what should show above something else. Facebook said the decision to introduce the feature was taken after receiving feedback from people who wanted more control over the posts they got to see.

“’Why am I seeing this Facebook post?’ It’s a question we’ve gotten from people over the years. Now we’re announcing a feature that explains the answer in more detail. It has information like whether the post is from a friend or a Group you joined or a Page you followed. And it includes why the post is showing up in your News Feed in a particular order – such as how often you interact with certain posts and how popular the post is,” Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer at Facebook, said in a post.

This is the first time Facebook has built information on how ranking works directly into the app.

Facebook is also updating its “Why am I seeing this ad?” feature. “Since we launched this feature a few years ago, you’ve been able to see how factors like basic demographic details and interests affect the ads in your News Feed. Now you can see when the advertiser uploaded the information or if the advertiser worked with another marketing partner to run the ad,” said Sandberg.

The Facebook blog said both these updates were part of its ongoing investment in giving people “more context and control across Facebook”. “We will continue to listen to your feedback and evolve these features over time,” Sethuraman posted.

Both these features will be rolled out over the next few weeks.