Why Facebook's news feed changes are bad news for democracy | Emily Bell

News organisations say they have seen a steady drop off in Facebook referred traffic

"Homepage. Even the word sounds old. We bring the news to your social feed." A week ago this is what you would have found on the not-the-homepage of the millennial-focused video site Now This News. Icons for Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook guided viewers out on to the social web where the real action was. Click there now and it is a different story: social media icons have been relegated to the very bottom of the page, while stories like "Unicorn Noodles Are Now A Thing" and "Cape Town is Going to Run Out of Water" are plastered over Now This videos.

The homepage is back, and not just for those chronically old people over 40, but for every news organisation that wants to survive falling off the great Facebook cliff of 2018. Because last week Facebook announced it was changing its recipe for the news feed - the stream of posts anyone sees when they open up their account - and that the net effect would be to promote more things posted by family and friends, and fewer things produced by publishers.