Facebook allows users to view non-algorithmic version of News Feed

In a blog post late Wednesday, the company introduced a tool that will allow users “more control” to see a non-algorithmic version of the News Feed. The tool, called Favourites, allows users to prioritize posts from friends and Pages they follow in the News Feed. While that doesn’t necessarily assure you of a non-algorithmic news feed, it does take some of the recommendation algorithms’ impact away.

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“By selecting up to 30 friends and Pages to include in Favorites, their posts will appear higher in ranked News Feed and can also be viewed as a separate filter. People who use Favorites frequently can access it from the Feed Filter Bar, a new menu at the top of News Feed,” the company said in the blog post. The “Feed Filter Bar” includes the setting to see most recent posts first and allows users to switch between “algorithmically ranked News Feed” and a feed that’s sorted in chronological order of posts.

The company also introduced a tool that allows users to control who can comment on their public posts. Users will get a menu of options that allows them to choose who can see their public posts — this includes settings for anyone and only people and Pages that are tagged on the post. If that sounds familiar, it’s because Twitter introduced a similar feature last year, which allows users to control who comments on their tweets.

“By adjusting your commenting audience, you can further control how you want to invite conversation onto your public posts and limit potentially unwanted interactions. And if you’re a public figure, creator or brand, you too can choose to limit your commenting audience on your public posts to help you feel safe and engage in more meaningful conversations with your community,” the company said.