Facebook is testing new personalization tools

Last Thursday, Facebook announced that the company was testing certain users to give them more control over what is displayed on their news feed. Three new menus have thus appeared among the selected people. A “friends and family” menu and a “groups and pages” menu and finally a “public figures” menu.

Internet users can choose to keep a “normal” ratio between the different categories or choose to favor, or put aside, some of these sources. Users can also do the same with certain themes, telling the platform what they don’t want to see and what they like.

New for advertisers

Along with these tools for users, Facebook is also developing tools for advertisers. These tools should allow companies wishing to advertise on the social network to exclude their content from certain categories. “When an advertiser selects one or more subjects, their ad will not be shown to people who have recently discussed these subjects in their news feed,” the company explains in its press release. Companies will thus be able to choose whether or not to appear in categories such as “crime and tragedy”, “news and politics” or even “social issues”.

For now, the test is reserved for English-speaking users. Facebook says only a small percentage of people around the world currently have access to this beta. The platform says, however, that the program will gradually expand over the next few weeks.