Chances are, you’ve noticed a gradual uptick in the amount of spam in your Facebook Newsfeed. You know the stuff--"like-baiting", spammy links to trick you into clicking on a junk website, and even seeing the content over and over again--and Facebook is trying to get rid of it.

“A smaller set of publishers who are frequently and intentionally creating feed spam will see their distribution decrease over the next few months,” wrote Facebook’s Erich Owens and Chris Turitzin in a blog post. “We’re making these changes to ensure that feed spam content does not drown out the content that people really want to see on Facebook from the friends and Pages they care about.”


The skeptical among us are now wondering if we can trust Facebook to help reduce the number of things we click on within the social network, as that seems on its face to be antithetical to the company’s overall mission. However, the fact of the matter is that yes, you can trust Facebook on this one.

Facebook is both a brand and a product, and the company will do anything necessary to protect that. Sure, some policies anger Facebook users, particularly those that pertain to data sharing and privacy, but those are calculated moves by Facebook to maximize its profitability and expand what the product is capable of.

Seeing users’ Newsfeeds peppered with spammy links tarnishes the Facebook brand, and redundant content does nothing beneficial; thus, Facebook wants to be rid of them.

Don’t expect those ads to go away, though; those are part of Facebook’s plan for success.