Facebook has announced that as of last month, it started deranking posts that included sensational health claims or advertise a product based on health-related claims, such as those that claim to help you lose weight. This type of move is important for Facebook because users don’t like spammy posts and if there are too many people end up drifting away from the service.
For those with Facebook Pages, the firm said that these changes won’t cause any significant differences in terms of the visibility of their posts in users" feeds. With that said, if your page falls foul of the changes mentioned above then fewer users will see your content. Once pages stop posting offending content, they’ll no longer be affected by the change.
The information that people consume online around health can be very influential on the decisions they take. Back in February, YouTube even stopped running advertisements on channels that promote the anti-vaccination movement, believing such content to be “dangerous and harmful”. Facebook’s adjustment isn’t specifically targeting anti-vaccination posts nor does the company mention it in the announcement but if the topic is brought up in relation to a sensational claim then it will be deranked.
Going forward, the company has said it will continue to find ways to improve the content in News Feed by going after low-quality content that is likely to make people become disengaged.