Facebook: More local news in your News Feed

Social networking site Facebook announced new changes in its News Feed to prioritize posts from friends and high-quality news sources.

"Starting today, we're going to show more stories from news sources in your local town or city. If you follow a local publisher or if someone shares a local story, it may show up higher in News Feed. We're starting this first in the US, and our goal is to expand to more countries this year," CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post.

The social site also expects the amount of news in News Feed to go down as the site focus on meaningful social interactions with family and friends over passive consumption.

We are prioritizing local news as a part of our emphasis on high-quality news, and with today's update, stories from local news publishers may appear higher in News Feed for followers in publishers' geographic areas. This change is one of the many signals that go into News Feed ranking. For more, see our Publisher Guidelines, the post added.

There are no constraints on which publishers are eligible, which means large local publishers will benefit, as well as publishers that focus on niche topics like local sports, arts and human-interest stories. That said, small news outlets may benefit from this change more than other outlets because they tend to have a concentrated readership in one location.

Further, the company said that this is just the beginning of our efforts to prioritize high-quality news. This update may not capture all small or niche-interest publishers at first, but we are working to improve precision and coverage over time. All of our work to reduce false news, misinformation, clickbait, sensationalism and inauthentic accounts still applies.

The social networking site is working closely with local publishers through the Facebook Journalism Project over the last year, visiting newsrooms around the world to provide training and support for journalists, as well as building products that work for their publications and readers.

In addition to prioritizing local news, FB is also testing a dedicated section on its platform that connects people to news and information in their community, called Today In. We are testing this in six US cities and plan to expand in the coming months.

These efforts to prioritize quality news in News Feed, including this local initiative, are a direct result of the ongoing collaboration with partners. Our goal is to show more news that connects people to their local communities, and we look forward to improving and expanding these efforts this year, Facebook added.