Facebook Testing a Second News Feed With Content From Unfollowed Sources

After launching its Stories feature last week, social media giant Facebook is now testing a second News Feed, which comes with a rocket-shaped icon. It has shown up for several users across mobile platforms and provides them with content that Facebook thinks they will find interesting - but not that they already follow.

The cartoonish rocket-shaped icon provides users with a feed of pictures, videos, and posts from sources that the user does not even follow on the website but are similar to their interests, as per a report. The content that comes in this News Feed can include videos that users' friends are watching or content that the social giant thinks you will find interesting on the basis of your likes.

In a statement to TechCrunch, Facebook confirmed the testing of the feature by saying, "We are testing a complementary feed of popular articles, videos, and photos, customized for each person based on content that might be interesting to them. We've heard from people that they want an easy way to explore new content they haven't connected with yet."

The option for this feed has turned up for users across iOS and Android. Further, it has reportedly showed up even for people who have not opted in for the beta version of the app. However, this is not the first time that the company is testing a separate feed as the company was earlier found testing a separate feed albeit with a different icon, TechCrunch points out. While the earlier testing was reportedly limited to Android beta, the new feed is being tested at a larger scale and with more mobile platforms.

Considering that Facebook has been criticised about the fake news articles that are shared through its platform in past, it will be interesting how the company will be able to filter out sources that provide credible information in this feed.