Meta has decided to change the name of Facebook’s ‘News Feed’ to ‘Feed’. The News Feed is Facebook’s main interface, which allows users to see and interact with all the content posted by their friends, and was first introduced in 2006. The announcement of the name change was made through a tweet on 15 February on the Facebook App profile: “Starting today, our News Feed will now be known as “Feed.” Happy scrolling!”
Facebook spokesperson Dami Oyefeso said to The Verge this is “just a name change to better reflect the diverse content people see on their Feeds and that does not impact the app experience more broadly.”
Facebook’s News Feed did have a misleading name, which seemed to suggest that the content of the Feed was related to the circulation of news rather than the personal content of Facebook users. The decision to remove ‘News’ from the name, therefore, seems to suggest a willingness on Meta’s part to move away from the definition of a news provider. This is even more important given that Facebook has been heavily criticised and discussed for its handling of news in relation to the spread of hate speech and misinformation.
It is therefore an apparently minimal choice, but one that demonstrates an important position taken by Meta in terms of its attitude towards the sharing of news.
The name change could also be linked to the desire not to create confusion with the dedicated News Tab launched by Facebook in 2019 in the U.S., followed by Australia, Germany, and the U.K. In France, the feature was launched on 15 February.
Interactive Journalist at City, University of London. Originally from Switzerland, very passionate about travel and nature journalism.