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As a former active user on Facebook, this sort of change may succeed in bringing people like me back to the site. The minimal effort required in hitting that "s

As a former active user on Facebook, this sort of change may succeed in bringing people like me back to the site. The minimal effort required in hitting that "share" button means that every page that organically reached my friends would end up polluting my news feed as well with crap that I wasn't interested in and got in the way of what I had originally joined FB for. If my friends aren't seeing these posts, they won't be clicking "share" on them either. I've had my account on Facebook since 2004 when it first became available at my university. Since the very beginning it's first usefulness was as a Rolodex, basically. I recently stopped using the site (without deactivating my account, because it still serves that digital Rolodex function) because >75% of the posts on my newsfeed were either "organic" ads or propaganda. Most of the offending posts were things that had been "shared" by my friends and not necessarily even posted by pages I had "liked" or "followed" A principle I've been using recently to help me understand the world around me is that I am not special or unique, and when I do something, a lot of other people who are broadly similar to me are doing the same thing. So, I assume that there are others like me who have recently been deleting the FB app and avoiding the website, if not deleting their accounts entirely. Facebook is almost certainly aware of it, and while publishers are always going to see stuff like this as a money grab, it may be necessary for the health of the platform for FB to clamp down on publisher patterns that are driving users away.

kevstev 9y ago
Agreed here. I feel like I am constantly fighting to filter out all this "content" from external sites. I feel like I can't even see the stuff I joined FB for- to see pictures/updates to see what my friends are up to. Instagram is much better for this these days, the signal/noise ratio is getting so low on FB that I find myself going on just out of habit, not because of the information I get from there. It has shades of slashdot, which for awhile was just in my daily list of sites to visit because it always had been, eventually though it dropped off. Note that you can eliminate a lot of this crap by changing your news feed from "top stories" to "most recent." This change will not persist, can not be changed on the app, and you will have to manually change this every time you log on- you can't even save the url as a bookmark. Still, its waaay closer to the FB I used to really like.
- acquacow 9y ago
  You can view "Most Recent" in the app, just have to grab it from your feeds tab.
  - kevstev 9y ago
    Is this new-ish? I remember looking for this awhile back and not being able to find it. Thank you though!
- zeeveener 9y ago
  Unless they’ve recently changed how it works the URL does actually affect the Top Stories vs Most Recent.^1 I’ve had the same bookmark for a couple years now which always defaults to Most Recent. [1] https://www.facebook.com/?sk=h_chr https://www.facebook.com/?sk=h_chr
jobu 9y ago
> my friends would end up polluting my news feed as well with crap that I wasn't interested in and got in the way of what I had originally joined FB for A few weeks ago I went back on Facebook and took the time to try cleaning it up. I went through every shared article and clicked "hide post" and "hide all posts from site". Some bullshit shares still make it into my feed, but mostly it's pictures and actual updates from friends and family again. This was after I got sick of the crap people were sharing and stopped using Facebook last year. Unfortunately it also meant I missed a few big family events that were announced on Facebook. My brother moved and didn't mention it when I called him because he had posted so much on Facebook that he figured I already knew.
- PeanutNore 9y ago
  >I went through every shared article and clicked "hide post" and "hide all posts from site". I did try this at one point, but it ended up like whac-a-mole. My wife is still really active on Facebook, so I still hear about important stuff that family and friends post through her. If she wasn't on there, I'd probably seek to make it so that I got some kind of daily summary of text posts and events from a specific, very small group of people.
mi100hael 9y ago
Anecdata: I'm also an old user (joined around 2006). I deactivated my account because I also found the noise level to get too high. Facebook still won, though, because I've switched to Instagram.
NicoJuicy 9y ago
Ads are still in the feed, only smb's that don't pay ads won't
- thefalcon 9y ago
  Exactly. Your friends will still see share just as many ads, except they'll be even more obnoxiously click-baity because the ads will be that much more desperate to make ROI.
lamontcg 9y ago
Its funny that to advertisers this is like the start of nuclear war, but to me it might mean I actually start using facebook more. I hardly ever login any more, when I do I usually have 80+ notifications. I never bother looking at my facebook feed since its just a dumpsterfire of garbage I'm not interested in. Mostly I use Messenger to talk to 2 or 3 people who are on messenger.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  Yeah, it's because advertisers are parasites; they exploit a medium, making it worse for consumers. Any trouble for them is a victory for us.
_Tev 9y ago
> So, I assume that there are others like me who have recently been deleting the FB app and avoiding the website, if not deleting their accounts entirely. It is funny how programmers assume everyone thinks like them. I have not seen similar anti-FB stance from any other group, no matter the social status / education. Except maybe older people, who never used any social network / messaging outside the cellular network. And even among them there are exceptions ...

kevstev 9y ago

Agreed here. I feel like I am constantly fighting to filter out all this "content" from external sites. I feel like I can't even see the stuff I joined FB for- to see pictures/updates to see what my friends are up to. Instagram is much better for this these days, the signal/noise ratio is getting so low on FB that I find myself going on just out of habit, not because of the information I get from there. It has shades of slashdot, which for awhile was just in my daily list of sites to visit because it always had been, eventually though it dropped off. Note that you can eliminate a lot of this crap by changing your news feed from "top stories" to "most recent." This change will not persist, can not be changed on the app, and you will have to manually change this every time you log on- you can't even save the url as a bookmark. Still, its waaay closer to the FB I used to really like.

acquacow 9y ago
You can view "Most Recent" in the app, just have to grab it from your feeds tab.
- kevstev 9y ago
  Is this new-ish? I remember looking for this awhile back and not being able to find it. Thank you though!
zeeveener 9y ago
Unless they’ve recently changed how it works the URL does actually affect the Top Stories vs Most Recent.^1 I’ve had the same bookmark for a couple years now which always defaults to Most Recent. [1] https://www.facebook.com/?sk=h_chr https://www.facebook.com/?sk=h_chr

jobu 9y ago

> my friends would end up polluting my news feed as well with crap that I wasn't interested in and got in the way of what I had originally joined FB for A few weeks ago I went back on Facebook and took the time to try cleaning it up. I went through every shared article and clicked "hide post" and "hide all posts from site". Some bullshit shares still make it into my feed, but mostly it's pictures and actual updates from friends and family again. This was after I got sick of the crap people were sharing and stopped using Facebook last year. Unfortunately it also meant I missed a few big family events that were announced on Facebook. My brother moved and didn't mention it when I called him because he had posted so much on Facebook that he figured I already knew.

PeanutNore 9y ago
>I went through every shared article and clicked "hide post" and "hide all posts from site". I did try this at one point, but it ended up like whac-a-mole. My wife is still really active on Facebook, so I still hear about important stuff that family and friends post through her. If she wasn't on there, I'd probably seek to make it so that I got some kind of daily summary of text posts and events from a specific, very small group of people.

mi100hael 9y ago

Anecdata: I'm also an old user (joined around 2006). I deactivated my account because I also found the noise level to get too high. Facebook still won, though, because I've switched to Instagram.

NicoJuicy 9y ago

Ads are still in the feed, only smb's that don't pay ads won't

thefalcon 9y ago
Exactly. Your friends will still see share just as many ads, except they'll be even more obnoxiously click-baity because the ads will be that much more desperate to make ROI.

lamontcg 9y ago

Its funny that to advertisers this is like the start of nuclear war, but to me it might mean I actually start using facebook more. I hardly ever login any more, when I do I usually have 80+ notifications. I never bother looking at my facebook feed since its just a dumpsterfire of garbage I'm not interested in. Mostly I use Messenger to talk to 2 or 3 people who are on messenger.

TeMPOraL 9y ago
Yeah, it's because advertisers are parasites; they exploit a medium, making it worse for consumers. Any trouble for them is a victory for us.

_Tev 9y ago

> So, I assume that there are others like me who have recently been deleting the FB app and avoiding the website, if not deleting their accounts entirely. It is funny how programmers assume everyone thinks like them. I have not seen similar anti-FB stance from any other group, no matter the social status / education. Except maybe older people, who never used any social network / messaging outside the cellular network. And even among them there are exceptions ...