Vote for C

A: abit confusing and messy

B: C has better contrast

D: abit confusing and messy

My vote goes to C,

I like the contrast,

C or D. I perfer D, but jlei523 does have a good point wrt. the future.

My vote goes to C because it has the best contrast without cluttering the feed.

A --> I think the blue dot will clutter up the news feed. In addition, I think the color blue already represents a link or button.

B --> Not enough contrast. Edit: On second look, I think this version is fine too.

D --> Gray background also clutters the feed and it'll be confusing to users if there's ever an additional on-hover color state for news cards.