Meta is changing the name of Facebook’s ‘News Feed’ to simply ‘Feed’ in order to reflect the fact that some of your friends’ updates really aren’t news at all.
The company shared the news via the below tweet, with company spokesperson Dami Oyefeso telling The Verge it is “just a name change to better reflect the diverse content people see on their Feeds” and “does not impact the app experience more broadly.”
Starting today, our News Feed will now be known as "Feed." Happy scrolling! pic.twitter.com/T6rjO9qzFc
— Facebook App (@facebookapp) February 15, 2022
So why the change at all? Facebook’s dissemination of news has gotten it in a lot of trouble over the years, so maybe this is a way to distance the idea of Facebook as a news distribution service. Meta has said it is actively reducing the amount of political content that appears on users’ feeds, so it is possible the rebranding represents that.
In a memo to employees, Meta said the “News Feed” name “made people think it was a place for news stories instead of posts from friends.” To which I’d argue this confusion has existed for 15 years now.