9 ms·

> All because FB's algorithm presumably decided that he didn't post much, so he didn't warrant enough attention in our feeds. This is the oddest thing to me. I

by zkms 9y ago

> All because FB's algorithm presumably decided that he didn't post much, so he didn't warrant enough attention in our feeds. This is the oddest thing to me. I would imagine that people who post rarely should be given preferential treatment and have their post included more often than if the feed was just a chronological timeline.

praisewhitey 9y ago
This appears to be what Twitter's "In case you missed it" is doing. I follow accounts that post maybe once a week and they're regularly featured in that section.
- dx034 9y ago
  One of the reasons I switched from Facebook to Twitter is that their feed works much better. FB is full of videos, posts of people I follow are rarely shown. Twitter is relatively "unbiased" and shows posts mostly as they appear.
lbotos 9y ago
I'm gearing up for a 2018 "no social media on weekends" and I tested it this weekend. When I logged in to FB this AM, I had 10 notifications: Most were: Britt added a new photo. You have a new friend suggestion: Gloria. Tiffany updated her status. Jeff updated his status. June updated his status. Lily updated her status. These are people that I assume the algorithm thought would "suck me back in". It was really fascinating to see how the algo was stuffing my notifications to fuel that dopamine release.
- nerfhammer 9y ago
  I notice that these re-engagement notifications tend to do an absolutely terrible job predicting which people I would care most when they post something. Maybe my Facebook posts drive people to close their Facebook window or otherwise engage with ads less, so Facebook is encouraging me to stay away.
- perseusprime11 9y ago
  Good for you. I am completely off Facebook and feel much happier. I no longer needed to see people broadcast how happy or smart they are.
- peckrob 9y ago
  After a few weeks without checking your notifications, they start emailing you things like this.
  - vthallam 9y ago
    And then follows the text messages.
  - lsaferite 9y ago
    I haven't logged into my FB account in a few years at this point. The emails I get are annoying AF. "Did you see {your aunt}'s comment on {your cousin}'s status?", so I click only to be taken to a login page. And I fall for it too often. The kicker is the email summary has more info than the body when you click on it. It has a little tease of what the original status was or something.
    - username223 9y ago
      The lesson to learn here is: "if something in your computer environment annoys you, spend a few minutes to permanently fix it." I configured my email client to trash pretty much all email from "@facebook.com" years ago, and this is no longer a problem for me.
      - lsaferite 9y ago
        I agree. I've been slowly unsubscribing from all the annoying email lists I'm on for just this reason.
    - gaius 9y ago
      Twitter and LinkedIn do this too. And the kicker is: they know it's not actually important, or they would include it in the body of the email!
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
nerfhammer 9y ago
I'm sure Facebook has tested it experimentally. But yeah I would have guessed posts from people that post infrequently tend to be marginally more interesting out of some novelty effect. Maybe it's feedback loops: people that post infrequently tend to have learned to do so because they made genuinely less interesting posts and got fewer engagements and ipso facto less psychological reward from posting to Facebook. So, they post less frequently. The algorithm notices that posting infrequently is a sign that your posts are less interesting ends up amplifying the effect, driving even fewer engagements to these people, and so on. It doesn't self-correct because the posts are genuinely less interesting, but the would-be posters are penalized disproportionately more than how relatively less interesting their posts are.
- tyingq 9y ago
  >I'm sure Facebook has tested it experimentally Probably, but with primary goals of ad clicks, prolonged FB time on site, etc. Worth noting that the old, unoptimized system would have worked fine for this case. Facebook's goals just don't align with visitor goals.
  - nerfhammer 9y ago
    > Probably, but with primary goals of ad clicks, prolonged FB time on site, etc. > Facebook's goals just don't align with visitor goals. Well, obviously
  - andrewstuart2 9y ago
    > Facebook's goals just don't align with visitor goals. Or rather, Facebook's goals are (or should be) to balance optimally between visitors' goals, and advertisers' goals such that profit is sustainable. They need people to stay on and return to the site in order to bring in advertisers. They also need advertisers' ads to get clicked to remain attractive and profitable.
    - tyingq 9y ago
      I'd believe that if they had competition. They just really don't. I think they've figured out they can gut visitor concerns. Might change as their current demographic ages and dies off. Teens and college kids don't seem to care much about FB.
wpietri 9y ago
Having interviewed people who worked at Facebook, I'm convinced that nobody there really understands how it works. (Or, at best, a very few people do.) There are just too many people running around trying relentlessly to improve micro-metrics by fractions of a percent for the system to have much in the way of intellectual coherence.
- greggman 9y ago
  you may have seen it but there is a really scary Ted talk suggesting that it's possible Facebook is using deep learning techniques to optimize for engagement and they have no idea why it picks what it picks but it's possible making people choose sides and argue happens to be the best way to meet its goals https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iFTWM7HV2UI https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iFTWM7HV2UI
  - nautilus12 9y ago
    If this is true then it explains so much. Facebook is trying to get people to be miserable because then they are using facebook more, and its engineered in such a way that it makes us addicted to facebook and want to use it more anyway. Is this enough reason for our society to revolt against facebook? How do we actually make it go away when everyone is addicted to it. Does anyone have any practical tactical strategies to get rid of it?
    - trophycase 9y ago
      Just delete it, it's not that difficult.
      - maskedSlacker 9y ago
        It's incredibly liberating in fact. My life is so much better without it. And I'm not missing anything of value. The people who matter can get a hold of me if they want.
        9y ago
danso 9y ago
Apparently Facebook sends out notifications when a friend who hasn't posted in awhile does post. I don't know if this signal manifests itself outside of notifications, i.e. whether these first-post-in-awhile get high placement in a "Top Stories" newsfeed. https://www.reddit.com/r/facebook/comments/6u5twl/friend_posted_something_for_the_first_time_in_a/ https://www.reddit.com/r/facebook/comments/6u5twl/friend_pos... I know that as a sporadic user myself, I get mobile notifications telling me things like it's been "6 weeks since you've last posted", or that it's about time I change my profile pic.
gdulli 9y ago
Your human logic of "should" is meaningless if it doesn't fit into the revenue-maximizing algorithm.
disordinary 9y ago
They reward people for using the platform.
rblatz 9y ago
Facebook ends up showing me basically worthless crap, people that I went to high school 16 years ago with and haven’t interacted with since besides accepting a friend request years ago get top billing, but actual friends that I want to keep up with? They seem to just disappear off my feed. Now I just quickly scroll through a bunch of worthless posts stop at maybe 2-3 tops and call it a day. At this point it’s barely even worth using anymore.
friedButter 9y ago
When I post less than once a month, it pops up at the top of everyones feed. If I'm posting daily, it doesnt...
bigbugbag 9y ago
To the contrary, someone posting infrequently would not help with keeping facebook's useds engaged on the website to be shown ads, profiled and whatever facebook's shenaningans are at the moment.
- hanspeter 9y ago
  That's not the issue. The issue is if a post from an infrequent poster is more interesting than a post from a frequent poster. The prevailing believe is that this is actually the case. And in that case Facebook would also profit from prioritising the infrequent poster's post.
iRideUnicornz 9y ago
This is purely anecdotal, but some of the most prominent notifications FB sends me is when someone who's been inactive for a while posts something. For example, I had one friend who posts maybe once or twice a year, and I would always be notified if that person posted something new, like when he suddenly posted an album of his recent vacation to Europe. With that being said, the FB algorithm beast is far too complex to figure out by guessing, so experiences like the one being outlined in this twitter post are probably all too common.

by zkms 9y ago

praisewhitey 9y ago

This appears to be what Twitter's "In case you missed it" is doing. I follow accounts that post maybe once a week and they're regularly featured in that section.

dx034 9y ago
One of the reasons I switched from Facebook to Twitter is that their feed works much better. FB is full of videos, posts of people I follow are rarely shown. Twitter is relatively "unbiased" and shows posts mostly as they appear.

lbotos 9y ago

I'm gearing up for a 2018 "no social media on weekends" and I tested it this weekend. When I logged in to FB this AM, I had 10 notifications: Most were: Britt added a new photo. You have a new friend suggestion: Gloria. Tiffany updated her status. Jeff updated his status. June updated his status. Lily updated her status. These are people that I assume the algorithm thought would "suck me back in". It was really fascinating to see how the algo was stuffing my notifications to fuel that dopamine release.

nerfhammer 9y ago
I notice that these re-engagement notifications tend to do an absolutely terrible job predicting which people I would care most when they post something. Maybe my Facebook posts drive people to close their Facebook window or otherwise engage with ads less, so Facebook is encouraging me to stay away.
perseusprime11 9y ago
Good for you. I am completely off Facebook and feel much happier. I no longer needed to see people broadcast how happy or smart they are.
peckrob 9y ago
After a few weeks without checking your notifications, they start emailing you things like this.
- vthallam 9y ago
  And then follows the text messages.
- lsaferite 9y ago
  I haven't logged into my FB account in a few years at this point. The emails I get are annoying AF. "Did you see {your aunt}'s comment on {your cousin}'s status?", so I click only to be taken to a login page. And I fall for it too often. The kicker is the email summary has more info than the body when you click on it. It has a little tease of what the original status was or something.
  - username223 9y ago
    The lesson to learn here is: "if something in your computer environment annoys you, spend a few minutes to permanently fix it." I configured my email client to trash pretty much all email from "@facebook.com" years ago, and this is no longer a problem for me.
    - lsaferite 9y ago
      I agree. I've been slowly unsubscribing from all the annoying email lists I'm on for just this reason.
  - gaius 9y ago
    Twitter and LinkedIn do this too. And the kicker is: they know it's not actually important, or they would include it in the body of the email!
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]

nerfhammer 9y ago

I'm sure Facebook has tested it experimentally. But yeah I would have guessed posts from people that post infrequently tend to be marginally more interesting out of some novelty effect. Maybe it's feedback loops: people that post infrequently tend to have learned to do so because they made genuinely less interesting posts and got fewer engagements and ipso facto less psychological reward from posting to Facebook. So, they post less frequently. The algorithm notices that posting infrequently is a sign that your posts are less interesting ends up amplifying the effect, driving even fewer engagements to these people, and so on. It doesn't self-correct because the posts are genuinely less interesting, but the would-be posters are penalized disproportionately more than how relatively less interesting their posts are.

tyingq 9y ago
>I'm sure Facebook has tested it experimentally Probably, but with primary goals of ad clicks, prolonged FB time on site, etc. Worth noting that the old, unoptimized system would have worked fine for this case. Facebook's goals just don't align with visitor goals.
- nerfhammer 9y ago
  > Probably, but with primary goals of ad clicks, prolonged FB time on site, etc. > Facebook's goals just don't align with visitor goals. Well, obviously
- andrewstuart2 9y ago
  > Facebook's goals just don't align with visitor goals. Or rather, Facebook's goals are (or should be) to balance optimally between visitors' goals, and advertisers' goals such that profit is sustainable. They need people to stay on and return to the site in order to bring in advertisers. They also need advertisers' ads to get clicked to remain attractive and profitable.
  - tyingq 9y ago
    I'd believe that if they had competition. They just really don't. I think they've figured out they can gut visitor concerns. Might change as their current demographic ages and dies off. Teens and college kids don't seem to care much about FB.

wpietri 9y ago

Having interviewed people who worked at Facebook, I'm convinced that nobody there really understands how it works. (Or, at best, a very few people do.) There are just too many people running around trying relentlessly to improve micro-metrics by fractions of a percent for the system to have much in the way of intellectual coherence.

greggman 9y ago
you may have seen it but there is a really scary Ted talk suggesting that it's possible Facebook is using deep learning techniques to optimize for engagement and they have no idea why it picks what it picks but it's possible making people choose sides and argue happens to be the best way to meet its goals https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iFTWM7HV2UI https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iFTWM7HV2UI
- nautilus12 9y ago
  If this is true then it explains so much. Facebook is trying to get people to be miserable because then they are using facebook more, and its engineered in such a way that it makes us addicted to facebook and want to use it more anyway. Is this enough reason for our society to revolt against facebook? How do we actually make it go away when everyone is addicted to it. Does anyone have any practical tactical strategies to get rid of it?
  - trophycase 9y ago
    Just delete it, it's not that difficult.
    - maskedSlacker 9y ago
      It's incredibly liberating in fact. My life is so much better without it. And I'm not missing anything of value. The people who matter can get a hold of me if they want.
      - 9y ago

danso 9y ago

Apparently Facebook sends out notifications when a friend who hasn't posted in awhile does post. I don't know if this signal manifests itself outside of notifications, i.e. whether these first-post-in-awhile get high placement in a "Top Stories" newsfeed. https://www.reddit.com/r/facebook/comments/6u5twl/friend_posted_something_for_the_first_time_in_a/ https://www.reddit.com/r/facebook/comments/6u5twl/friend_pos... I know that as a sporadic user myself, I get mobile notifications telling me things like it's been "6 weeks since you've last posted", or that it's about time I change my profile pic.

gdulli 9y ago

Your human logic of "should" is meaningless if it doesn't fit into the revenue-maximizing algorithm.

disordinary 9y ago

They reward people for using the platform.

rblatz 9y ago

Facebook ends up showing me basically worthless crap, people that I went to high school 16 years ago with and haven’t interacted with since besides accepting a friend request years ago get top billing, but actual friends that I want to keep up with? They seem to just disappear off my feed. Now I just quickly scroll through a bunch of worthless posts stop at maybe 2-3 tops and call it a day. At this point it’s barely even worth using anymore.

friedButter 9y ago

When I post less than once a month, it pops up at the top of everyones feed. If I'm posting daily, it doesnt...

bigbugbag 9y ago

To the contrary, someone posting infrequently would not help with keeping facebook's useds engaged on the website to be shown ads, profiled and whatever facebook's shenaningans are at the moment.

hanspeter 9y ago
That's not the issue. The issue is if a post from an infrequent poster is more interesting than a post from a frequent poster. The prevailing believe is that this is actually the case. And in that case Facebook would also profit from prioritising the infrequent poster's post.

iRideUnicornz 9y ago

This is purely anecdotal, but some of the most prominent notifications FB sends me is when someone who's been inactive for a while posts something. For example, I had one friend who posts maybe once or twice a year, and I would always be notified if that person posted something new, like when he suddenly posted an album of his recent vacation to Europe. With that being said, the FB algorithm beast is far too complex to figure out by guessing, so experiences like the one being outlined in this twitter post are probably all too common.