A researcher is suing Meta for the right to ‘turn off’ Facebook’s news feed
Facebook’s News Feed algorithm has long been at the center of debates about some of Meta’s biggest problems. It’s also been a near constant source of complaints from users. But, if a newly filed lawsuit is successful, Facebook users may be able to use the social network with a vastly different feed. The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University is suing Meta on behalf of a researcher who wants to release a browser extension that would allow people to “effectively turn off” their algorithmic feeds.
The extension was created by Ethan Zuckerman, a researcher and professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He argues that Facebook users would be better off with more control over their feeds. “The tool, called Unfollow Everything 2.0, would allow users to unfollow their friends, groups, and pages, and, in doing so, to effectively turn off their newsfeed—the endless scroll of posts that users see when they log into Facebook,” the lawsuit explains. “Users who download the tool would be free to use the platform without the feed, or to curate the feed by refollowing only those friends and groups whose posts they really want to see.” …read more
