Social media network Facebook is to make major changes to its news feed by prioritising posts from family and friends over those from media organisations, businesses and brands.

Founder Mark Zuckerberg said in a post that the change is to make time spent on the platform "more meaningful" for its users.

"Recently we've gotten feedback from our community that public content - posts from businesses, brands and media - is crowding out the personal moments that lead us to connect more with each other," he said.

He said making the changes will "encourage meaningful interactions between people".

News, brand and video content has "exploded" in recent years, "crowding out the personal moments that lead us to connect more with each other", he said.

The shift comes as experts reported a steep drop in interactions on the site.

Press Association analysis of data from social media analytics company Newswhip revealed a fall in engagements - a combination of reactions, comments and shares - for many of the UK's biggest news websites towards the end of 2017.