Facebook Has Ended Its Explore Feed Experiment

Back in October, Facebook introduced a new initiative to put Page content in a separate feed from content within a user's personal network. It was one of the first efforts from Facebook to shift its emphasis from advertisers to users -- and it would live under what the social media channel called the Explore Feed. "We constantly try out new features," Mosseri wrote. "Some of these changes ... work well ... others don’t and we drop them." While Mosseri writes that the Explore Feed was one response to long-term feedback, many believe that it was part of a larger response to the heightened scrutiny Facebook received among allegations that it was weaponized to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election. In surveys, Mosseri explained, users said that they didn't want to have to navigate multiple feeds. "Having two separate feeds," he wrote, "didn’t actually help [users] connect more with friends and family." As we wrote in October, the purpose of the Explore Feed was never to replace the News Feed. But as the pressure on Facebook to curb and prevent the spread of false information has yet to relent, it's likely that it will continue to test new features with this end goal -- even with the discontinuation of the Explore Feed. "We also received feedback that we made it harder for people in the test countries to access important information," Mosseri wrote, "and that we didn’t communicate the test clearly."