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Facebook Celebrates Decade Of News Feed

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- It's the first thing you see when you open Facebook and it has changed the way we communicate with our "friends" and we discover what's going on in the world. Facebook News Feed is celebrating its 10th birthday.

In a Facebook post, founder Mark Zuckerberg hailed the milestone, calling it "the first real social feed," and a decade later every major social network has some version of one.

On News Feed's 10th birthday, I want to share some thoughts on the idea of a social feed and how it's changed the way we...

Posted by Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Leigh Katcher Gandhi, Facebook's Product Marketing Manager, says it's changed the way we communicate with our friends and family.

"Before Facebook created News Feed, what we saw people doing is going to their friends profile pages to check out their latest updates and literally read the latest news," Gandhi said. "Facebook created News Feed so people could consume all of their friends content in one easy stream"

The News Feed has evolved over the years with the additions of 360 degree photos and live video.

Even though the algorithm always changes, users now have more control over what they see and who they share certain posts with.

"The great thing about News Feed is that it's customizable," Gandhi said, "so if there is something that you only want to share with a few close friends or family you can choose to do that, or if there is something you want to broadcast to your entire network you can choose to do that, too."

The average person only sees 10% of what their friends and family share on Facebook, but now you can prioritize certain people or pages that you always want to see at the top of your News Feed. On the flip side, if there are posts that you don't want to see you can unfollow friends and pages.

To customize what you see in your feed, open the app, tap "more" in the bottom right-hand corner, then go to settings and select News Feed preferences.

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