If there’s one complaint users have about social media giant/procrastination aid Facebook, it’s the site’s deficiency as a source for hard-hitting, crack journalism. Well, languish no more: The company revealed plans to change the emphasis of its ranking system to favor articles, which will see memes relegated down in its news feed in favor of actual news.

According to a post on Facebook’s blog, more and more users are looking to Facebook as a source of news. The company cites that average referral traffic from Facebook to media sites has increased by over 170% – almost tripled – in the past year. To Facebook, that’s a sign that people not only want to see more “relevant” news in their feeds, but also what their friends are saying about it. For users, that means goodbye Sad Keanu, and hello debt ceiling.

Why is Facebook doing this? According to the blob post, their surveys show that on average people prefer links to high quality articles about current events, their favorite sports team or shared interests, to the latest meme. Their intent is to tweak their algorithms such that the site is better able to distinguish high quality, substantive content from sillier posts.

“This means that high quality articles you or others read may show up a bit more prominently in your News Feed, and meme photos may show up a bit less prominently,” the company said.

As part of the change, Facebook will also offer up to three other links that suggest similar content they think users might enjoy, which will be powered by the recommendations of other like-minded users. In theory, the longer Facebook can keep users clicking through articles, the more valuable advertisement and featured posting space becomes to potential buyers. The sharing data Facebook collects is also useful in instructing bloggers and media outlets on what kinds of posts lead to the greatest coverage.

“While trying to show more articles people want to read, we also don’t want people to miss the conversations among their friends. So we’re updating bumping to highlight stories with new comments. After people read a story, they are unlikely to go back and find that story again to see what their friends were saying about it, and it wouldn’t bump up in News Feed. With this update stories will occasionally resurface that have new comments from friends.”

Translation: The importance of a news item is determined not by its content or impact, but by how many of a user’s friends comment on the piece. In a small way, this is something of a revolution. Whereas before the media outlets curated the information available to readers, like-minded Facebook users will now be able to curate content not only for themselves, but friends as well. The impact of this new reality remains to be seen.

RIP, Nyan Cat.