Facebook is changing how comments appear on its site.
The social media giant will begin ranking comments on public posts to display ‘relevant’ content.
Facebook hopes the move will also make conversations on the site more meaningful, the firm announced in a recent blog post.
Comments will only be automatically ranked on public posts from public figures, organizations and businesses with a large following.
‘We’re always working to ensure that people’s time on Facebook is well spent,’ said Facebook Product Manager Justine Shen.
‘One way we do this is through ranking, which promotes meaningful conversations by showing people the posts and comments most relevant to them.’
If a comment receives interaction from the Page or account that originally published the post, it’ll be ranked higher.
Additionally, if the comment or reaction is from a friend of the original poster, it’ll be displayed more prominently.
Shen also broke down some additional characteristics Facebook considers when determining whether or not a comment is relevant.
f a comment is violates Facebook’s community standards, or appears to be ‘engagement-bait,’ it might get downranked on a public post.
Engagement-bait is a tactic where an account attempts to attract engagement by using spammy language. For example, a post that says ‘LIKE if you’re an Aries!’ falls under the category of engagement-bait.
Facebook has also been soliciting feedback from users around what comments they’d rather see via surveys, so that ‘we can rank those higher,’ Shen said.
Finally, the firm looks at how people interact with different kinds of comments, such as the number of likes or replies they get, or the types of reactions they receive, such as angry, laughing, etc.
Facebook explained that ranking is automatically enabled for Pages and accounts where they have a lot of followers.
Users or Pages with smaller followings can still turn on ranking in their settings.
The move follows Facebook’s earlier efforts to make time spent on the site more meaningful.
Last January, Facebook announced it would make posts from businesses, brands and media less prominent, so that users can see more content from family and friends.
‘I’m changing the goal I give our product teams from focusing on helping you find relevant content to helping you have more meaningful social interactions,’ CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at the time of the change.
Meanwhile, other social media platforms have also increasingly focused on improving the ways in which users interact on their sites.
Twitter has focused more and more on improving the ‘health of conversations’ by considering a variety of changes, including potentially removing the ‘like’ button.