Facebook announced that it will begin prioritizing and customizing the News Feed content of users based on the speed of their Internet connections.
For the social media giant, this move will help users with slower connections or weaker networks maximize their Facebook experience.
As explained in a new blog post by Chris Marra and Alex Sourov, Facebook's emerging product manager and emerging engineering manager, those using strong networks or 4G LTE connection, will be able to see everything in their News Feed.
However, those on slower connections, such as 2G, will not be able to view as much videos and graphics-heavy content as those on faster connections. Instead, they will mainly see status updates from their friends and liked pages as well as news stories.
As explained by Facebook, this method will allow the users to see more News Feed content instead of struggling with their slow connectivity due to data-heavy videos and images.
"What this means for those of us on the News Feed team is making sure people can load and scroll through News Feed on any connection speed," Marra and Sourov wrote. "We've worked on a few updates recently to improve the experience so it works seamlessly and quickly for people in all parts of the world."
Aside from filtering content, Facebook will also load additional stories and photos in advance while users are still reading certain status posts or news articles. Through this, the new content will be ready for viewing once users scroll down on the page, PC Mag reported.
In addition, Facebook will prioritize the content that users are currently looking at.
"If you are on a poor internet connection and your News Feed is loading slowly, we will first download the story you're currently looking at, rather than download a series of News Feed stories," the two executives explained.
"For example, if you are looking at a photo your friend posted or a photo from a Page you've liked, that isn't fully downloaded, we prioritize that photo over loading a story below," they added.
Lastly, to ensure that users continue enjoying Facebook even after they've lost Internet connection, the social network will still display the News Feed content that has already been viewed or downloaded. This means users will be able to view photos and read through stories that they have already seen while waiting for their connection to return or improve.
Marra and Suorov did not mention when the new News Feed feature will be unveiled to the public but based on the blog post, it seems Facebook has already started prioritizing online content in selected regions.
