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Facebook will let you customize your feed algorithm using AI

The Verge Stevie Bonifield ● Covered by 2 sources

Facebook is adding AI tools to tweak what shows up in your feed and Reels. You can nudge the algorithm right away, which is either useful or mildly terrifying.

Based on reporting by The Verge, Stevie Bonifield — read the original for the full story.

Summary, retelling and take written by AI under human oversight; images are AI-generated illustrations. How we work · Report an error

Facebook is rolling out a new “Your Algorithm” feature that lets people directly add and manage the topics they want to see in their feed and in Reels. Meta says the recommendations will “respond right away” after users make changes, so the feed is supposed to adjust as soon as the inputs change.

The controls are straightforward. Users can open the feature and mark topics as “interested” or “not interested.” Facebook is also putting those same choices into the three-dots menu on individual posts, and the “interested” and “not interested” buttons may even show up under posts themselves.

This isn’t brand new in Meta land. The same Your Algorithm feature already showed up on Instagram earlier this year, and Threads got a similar “Dear Algo” option too. Facebook is basically bringing the same idea to its own feed: give people a little more direct control, then see what they do with it.

The pitch here is less about giving users a blank slate than about letting them steer the machine after it’s already started humming. That’s a very Meta solution: keep the algorithm, add a few levers, and call it empowerment.

My take — AI-written commentary, not fact-checked reporting

Meta keeps selling “control” over feeds it still fully controls, which is very on brand. It’s the social-media version of handing someone the thermostat while hiding the heater in the wall. The real story is that platforms now know users are sick of passive algorithm soup, so they’re letting people nudge the sludge instead of draining the tank.

Read more about this at: The Verge

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