I added a profile picture and some personal information, like what college I went to and the fact that I work at BuzzFeed, and I put down that I was based in New York.

The News Feed is a tool for consuming not just news stories and memes that interest you, but also those that your friends like. Few people — if anyone — use Facebook the way I have. Your friends' interests and tastes have a tremendous effect on what you see. But I wanted to see how Facebook's recommendation algorithms worked in a purely friendless vacuum. What kind of content would it suggest if all it had to go on was what I liked, rather than who ?

Also, it's important to remember that I have no friends on this profile.

A spokesperson for Facebook told BuzzFeed News that trying to use the News Feed without friends doesn't make any sense.

“This isn’t an experiment; it’s a stunt. It isn’t how people set up or use Facebook, and suggesting so is misleading. People connect with their friends on Facebook, and stories from friends are the heart of News Feed," they said. "Publishing an analysis of Facebook while deliberately removing all friend connections, the most important part of the experience, simply doesn't make sense."

It's also worth noting that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said that he wants to use the platform to actively mitigate political polarization by presenting a spectrum of viewpoints.