What the Tech? Facebook trick
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(ABC 6 News) – We’ve all seen the viral Facebook post that guides you to copy and paste a paragraph to trick Facebook’s algorithm to see more of your Facebook friends and remove Facebook ads. Posts scream out: “yesssss this really works!” But this is a hoax scammer use to find and dupe gullible Facebook users.
There is a similar Facebook post going viral now that is not a hoax, and it does work.
It says by copying, pasting, and posting this update, you’ll bypass Facebook’s algorithm that shows updates from only 25 friends. If you leave a comment, a hello, or a sticker to see more posts from the friend.
It’s true, Facebook tends to show updates from the same Friends at the top of your newsfeed. You may have 3,000 friends but you seldom see posts from the majority of them. Posts from days ago appear at the top of your feed, buried by older posts.
Facebook decides whose posts you see by how often you engage with your friends. If you comment or ‘like’ a friend’s post, you’ll see more from them at the top of your feed over time. The more you engage with a friend, the higher their posts appear on your timeline.
Every Facebook user has seen (maybe a hundred times) posts that ask friends to copy and paste something to trick Facebook's algorithms to see fewer ads and more friends. There's a new one going around that could be a hoax only it does work!
Facebook also weighs interactions. When you post a sticker or reaction, it tells Facebook you’re interested. Love, laugh, wow, and anger reactions are even more effective. So the more you react to some friends’ posts with those reactions the more frequent their posts appear near the top of your feed.
Facebook also pushes posts near the top of your feed if several of your friends engage with it.
You can adjust your settings to see posts from your closest friends though Facebook allows you to only make 30 friends your “Top Friends” and add them to a special feed.
If you’re on a smartphone you can tap settings, then feed, then select “friends”. This will place the most recent posts at the top of your feed. You may also see fewer ads. I did.
Note that this isn’t going to change your feed overnight. Posts you want to see will appear more frequently, and higher up in your feed in a week or two.