Facebook is planning a major change to their news feed.  According to those briefed on this change, Facebook believes prioritizing content that’s acted on will reduce the occurrence of fake and offensive content in the news feed.

The change will decisively favor user content and effectively deprioritize publishers’ content, according to three publishers that have been briefed by the platform ahead of the move, according to Digiday. It looks like it is simply another way to censor dissenting views.

Facebook told publishers that content from reputable publishers will also be surfaced. It didn’t specify how it would define “reputable publisher” or how their traffic would be impacted, though. The worry for publishers is that such an approach will have the unintended consequence of hurting high-quality content because a lot of legitimate news articles, while they may get read, tend not to get shared or commented on.

The Daily Sheeple‘s Joe Joseph also believes this is nothing more than a full-blown censorship attempt by the social media outlet. “Big change is comin’,” says Joseph. “It’s time to pull out the stops of censorship because it is going full tilt.”

“Let me rephrase [what Facebook told publishers] that for people just so we don’t use the term ‘fake and offensive content’,” Joseph says. “It’s any content that Facebook says it doesn’t like. That’s what that is. It has nothing to do with fake or offensive. It has everything to do with anything Facebook doesn’t like or perhaps runs counter to narrative and worldview.” 

“For people like Facebook, who have dual interests…it really gets kinda murky. And then they have to kinda talk through their a$$ to try to explain it away, which they can’t do,” Joseph added. He says Facebook will fail epically and Twitter won’t be far behind because of this obvious attempt at censorship. But, there’s still a lingering question:

“The question is, are you going to continue to support it and use it in a way that profits Facebook?” Joseph askes. “To me, the answer is ‘no.’ I certainly don’t do anything that would even remotely profit Facebook. Just because I don’t like Mark Zuckerberg.  I don’t like what he stands for and I certainly don’t like human beings that A. think they know what’s best for us, and B. try to, in some way shape or form, circumvent free will.”

Are we watching Facebook implode before our very eyes? Here’s hoping.