Dear Robin,
I see that my friends are all posting a warning about Facebook limiting the number of friends that I can see content from. The post tells me to to copy & past content on my page to make more of my friends comments show up..it looks like this
Is this real or is this scam?
Sincerely,
James G-Ct.
Dear James-
Thank you for your email. I have seem this all over Facebook. No, Your News Feed Is Not Limited to Posts From 25 Friends...The hackers and scammers are back, again…and we all knew that they would be….
Sorry to say, but 2021 has not ushered in new “tips to bypass FB” and it does NOT limit posts on your news feed.
Neither has Facebook started using a new algorithm that “chooses the same few people – the meme says..about 25 – who will read your posts”,.
Instead we’re still stuck with whatever algorithm Facebook uses to determine the order of content in your news feeds, regardless of what the latest, repeated spin on this old hoax wants you to believe. Copy-and-paste memes like these blocks of text posted on message boards, forwarded in emails and shared via social media — are as old as the internet.
This recent example started popping up in late 2017 and continues to see the occasional bump in shares. This false meme claims that Facebook’s “new algorithm” is limiting the number of people whose posts show up in your News Feed, usually pegging the number at just 25 or 26 people. You are then directed to comment on the post, which will supposedly “bypass the system” so that their posts show up in the future, and then copy and paste the text on their own Feeds. Multiple publications have
debunked this meme, but like other scams on the Facebook and the internet…it continues to persist. So, to clear things up:
No, Facebook does not set a limit on the number of people whose posts are shown in your News Feed.
The idea that News Feed only shows you posts from a set number of friends is a myth,The goal of your Facebook News Feed is to show you the posts that matter to you so that you have a more enjoyable experience. If Facebook somehow blocked you from seeing content from everyone but a small set of your friends, odds are you wouldn’t comeback. However, the persistence of the “25 friends” myth is believable because the posts in your News Feed are ranked in the order Facebook believes you’ll be most interested in seeing them. The News Feed algorithms prioritize posts that are predicted to spark conversations among people, because of their format — for example, live videos tend to lead to more discussions than regular videos — or because the posts were shared by people, groups or Pages you interact with frequently.
Because of this, it’s possible that you’ll see content from a similar list of posters at the top of your News Feed, which can make the “25 friends” idea seem plausible. And If you scroll down, you will be able to see posts from an even wider group of people.
Also, leaving a single comment on a post won’t suddenly “unblock” you from showing up in your friends’ Feed (because there’s no arbitrary limit in the first place), Remember..If you frequently trade comments with a friend, their posts are likely to be shown higher in your News Feed than posts from someone you never interact with.
And If you want to control what you see in your News Feed, there are more straightforward ways to do it than by sharing memes.
Here are a few tricks…If you want to make sure you see everything from a certain person, you can use the See First ,feature, in Facebook, to put that person’s posts at the top of your Feed. If you’ve heard too much from someone, you can Unfollow them. If you just want to take a break from someone, the Snooze feature removes them from your News Feed for 30 days.
Don’t believe everything you see or read on Facebook, do your research..search, using your favorite search engine, to find out more information..
If you would like to learn more check out my resources on CyberSafeSenior.com
#CyberSafeSenior#Cybersecurity#BeSeniorSmart#HOAX#FacebookMemes
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