There's A New Hoax Making Its Rounds On Facebook Again

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Another day, another hoax on Facebook. No, Facebook won’t be limiting your News Feed to show posts from only a small number of your friends if you don’t copy/paste that silly status update.

We’ve always come across hoaxes on Facebook, and there have been many different ones over the years. The most famous was probably that “copyright” hoax a few years back – and of course its many versions. You know, the ones shared by people you thought were a lot more intelligent. Well, there are intelligent people who think the earth is flat, so… that’s all I have to say about that. Anyway, another Facebook hoax is making the rounds again.

This time, it’s a meme that claims that Facebook will limit your News Feed to show you content from only 26 friends (!) if you don’t “trick” the algorithm somehow.

The latest Facebook hoax feeds off users’ distrust of Facebook and its News Feed algorithm

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There are a few versions of the hoax out there, and they all feed off people’s mistrust of Facebook and its News Feed algorithm. They all claim that if you don’t do something like copy/paste the text and share it, or comment “hi” on the post of a friend, Facebook’s “evil” algorithm will severely limit your experience on the platform.

The text goes something like this:

How to avoid hearing from the same 26 FB friends and nobody else:

Here is a post explaining why we don’t see all posts from our friends…. News feed recently shows only posts from the same few people, about 25, repeatedly the same, because Facebook has a new algorithm. Their system chooses the people to read Your post. However, I would like to choose for myself, Therefore, I ask you a favor: if you read this message leave me a quick comment, a “hello”, a sticker, whatever you want, so you will appear in my news feed.

Don’t just “Like”, Facebook requires a “Comment”. Even one word! Thanks!!! Otherwise Facebook chooses who to show me and instead I don’t need facebook to choose my friends! Do not hesitate to copy and paste on your wall so you can have more interaction with all your contacts and bypass the system. That’s why we don’t see all posts from our friends!

The hoax has been around for some time – appearing on Facebook around the end of last year – but only now has it really started going viral. Probably due to the recent news of Facebook’s recent News Feed changes – which don’t affect users in that way. That’s for sure. A Facebook spokesman denied that its News Feed would limit posts from a specific number of friends:

“We rank News Feed based on how relevant each post might be to you, and while we’ve made some updates that could increase the number of posts you see from your friends, your News Feed isn’t limited to 25 of them.”

No, Facebook won’t limit your News Feed to 20 or so friends. And no, you can’t “trick” the algorithm by commenting on a friend’s post.

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If you’d have to explain this to friend or family member, you could simply say that “Facebook’s News Feed doesn’t work that way,” or you could go into the details of how it works. You can quote Facebook (below), or figure out another way to say it. It’s up to you.

“We will predict which posts you might want to interact with your friends about, and show these posts higher in feed. These are posts that inspire back-and-forth discussion in the comments and posts that you might want to share and react to — whether that’s a post from a friend seeking advice, a friend asking for recommendations for a trip, or a news article or video prompting lots of discussion.”