Facebook has tweaked its News Feed algorithm to prioritise updates from the users friends over business and publisher pages.

Facebook has announced three changes, the first of which puts content “posted directly by the friends you care about” higher in the News Feed. Facebooks announcement says it is trying to keep the right balance of content for each users individual tastes, and is careful to emphasise that users who “like to read news or interact with posts from pages … will still see that content in News Feed”.

However, this could make it harder for brands or news publishers to reach users organically through the social network. This is particularly evident in the second tweak, which will deprioritise stories about friends liking or commenting on a post from a user or page they dont follow. These updates will appear lower down in the News Feed or be hidden completely – which looks like bad news for publishers who currently benefit from the second-hand exposure Facebook can offer.

The final update potentially works in publishers favour, however, relaxing the restrictions on showing multiple consecutive posts from the same source appearing in their News Feed, especially for users without much new content in their feed.

“The impact of these changes on your page’s distribution will vary considerably depending on the composition of your audience and your posting activity,” reads Facebooks announcement. “In some cases, post reach and referral traffic could potentially decline. Overall, pages should continue to post things that people find meaningful and consider these best practices for driving referral traffic.”