Meta has brought its Your Algorithm feature, already on Instagram, to Facebook. With help from AI, users can say what they want to see more or less of in their feed. The company hopes to answer criticism about opaque recommendations. Control still has limits, since the algorithm remains Meta's.
What it means: Bringing the Your Algorithm feature from Instagram to Facebook answers years of criticism that users do not understand why they see what they see in their feed, and that recommendation systems favour content that holds attention without necessarily being useful. With AI assistance, users can ask for more or less of certain topics, which looks like more control, but in practice it is still a setting inside a system Meta owns and runs. In Europe, the Digital Services Act already requires large platforms to explain their recommendation criteria and offer choices, so features like this are also a way to demonstrate compliance. For businesses that rely on organic reach on Facebook, the change can have practical effects, because if users dial down whole categories of content some posts will reach fewer people, which strengthens the case for owned channels such as a newsletter and a website that the business controls directly.
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