7 ms·

Facebook's Adam Mosseri on Why You'll See Less Video, More from Friends

52 points by sus_007 9y ago

cryptoz 9y ago
Never forget that Facebook has "tweaked" its newsfeed to specifically make hundreds of thousands of people feel sad and depressed for days or months, just to see if they could. And then they bragged about how great they are in a published paper that violated all ethics and morals worldwide. Why will I see less video, and more from friends? Because I won't be on facebook. Edit: From FTA: > But the other is a lot of the research that we've done and the research that's out there in the field and in academia that we've read suggests that online interacting with people is positively correlated with a lot of measures of well-being, whereas passively consuming media content online is less so. They do their own research on users, by modifying their news feed and measuring their emotions with sentiment analysis. You are not just a product they sell, you are also a product they experiment on. It's not worth it. Edit 2: On the secret psychological experiments that Facebook executes to torture your mind: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/30/technology/facebook-tinkers-with-users-emotions-in-news-feed-experiment-stirring-outcry.html https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/30/technology/facebook-tinke... The real kicker, is that by using Facebook they argue that you give consent to them to conduct unlimited psychological experiments on you in secret. > It argued that its 1.28 billion monthly users gave blanket consent to the company’s research as a condition of using the service.
- officemonkey 9y ago
  "Contagious" by Jonah Berger talks about how anger and anxiety makes people share memes. I find that Facebook and the organizations that use it are NOT interested in my mental health. They're interested in triggering my sharing response. I quit FB and my mental health improved. I don't mind using Goodreads because Amazon and I have the same goal: they want me to buy and read books, and guess what? So do I.
  - tzakrajs 9y ago
    I also have experience a drop in my basal anxiety since cutting out Facebook. I also learned, since being gone for a month or so, that many of those people aren't really interested in talking with me if it takes leaving the Facebook ecosystem. They can stay. Good riddance to all of it.
    - officemonkey 9y ago
      It also turns out that group text messaging is included on your phone. So anyone you _really_ want to talk to is _always_ nearby.
kardos 9y ago
This just reinforces the idea that Facebook has long jumped the shark -- they think their role is to orchestrate your interactions with friends. Not looking forward to 'ostracism-as-a-service'...
skybrian 9y ago
If they wanted to put users in control they'd let us filter out all videos. Instead it's ranking algorithm knows best.
- sgwealti 9y ago
  This! I don't want to see any video content.
  - giarc 9y ago
    I'm fine with video, but I'd like the volume control to be single video specific. Right now, if you watch and listen to one video, the volume remains on for the remaining videos that autoplay when you scroll by. I'd prefer that volume is off unless I tap on a video.
CPLX 9y ago
Why don't they just give us the ability to customize what we want to run on our feed? Like we could choose chronological, controversial, event based, whatever, I'm sure they could be creative, some could be algorithms. They could keep the default they have now which most people wouldn't change. Then they could inject ads by whatever means they want and we could check them out or click on them or ignore them as we see fit and they could make a little money. This isn't one of those "Why don't they just..." type posts where it's obvious why not. It's a serious question, like why can't they do this? I mean presumably there's some answer where they say that they have tested it and the current scheme increases engagement, or something like that. That seems unconvincing though, clearly there's a problem here they are trying to address. It's a piece of software, can't they add some controls to how people use it?
- thrusong 9y ago
  I remember back in 2007 there was a control panel for News Feed that looked almost like a mixing board with faders. There were several in a row with different icons above (relationship status, photos, etc) and you'd move each one up or down depending on which content you preferred to see and others you didn't care about. My news feed got a lot better after tweaking that, but they soon did away with it.
- jwong_ 9y ago
  Giving options for users is a slippery slope to making their application hard to use/give less control to them. In its current state, I don't see any social media websites offering control of their feed. They want to provide the maximum revenue to themselves, which means driving engagement numbers and eye time. I imagine the majority of people spend much more time when these algorithms are working, even if they're just idling scrolling. What they're trying to address is flukes in that algo -- they want to keep their pie and eat it too. They want the high engagement numbers and are trying to combat the negatives that are making headlines. I'd definitely like to see a social media site that's more about intentional interactions versus a raw numbers game of trying to keep me on.
- JAFTEM 9y ago
  I don't think it's in Facebook's interest to lose control of how they make revenue.
ikeboy 9y ago
Haven't seen any mention of it, but it would be in line with these goals to rank posts with lots of angry reacts or angry reacts to comments worse. Wonder if that's going to be a factor.
nacho2sweet 9y ago
They obviously have metrics that long time users like myself are quitting and opting out and are getting scared. Their own employees probably hate the feed and the product, and I can't see how they couldn't. Everyone in that office probably feels shitty and raged up all day.
- tzakrajs 9y ago
  I second your sentiments, albeit unfounded by a source. The employee morale at Facebook must be suffering. I have stopped caring about being hirable there ever since I realized the negative impact their product has had on my life.
- igravious 9y ago
  Your comment is filled with conjecture.
fogzen 9y ago
Not being in control of what I see is why I stopped using Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. I want to control what is in my feed, and I want it in chronological order. Twitter and Facebook make me feel passive and helpless. I use reddit because I’m in control: I only see what I subscribe to, and I can switch between popular and chronological.
- skshogun 9y ago
  You can still switch between algorithmic and chronological order on Twitter. At least on their mobile website
  - fogzen 9y ago
    Are you sure? I have “show best tweets first” turned off and my tweets are not in chronological order after signing in to check right now.
    - skshogun 9y ago
      From time to time, it shows 5 random older tweets on top. But everything else is in chronological order.
      - fogzen 9y ago
        I have tweets out of chronological order 20-30+ tweets down from the top... I’m assuming it’s different for you because you check Twitter often? In either case the feed is most definitely not in chronological order, but determined by an opaque, secret algorithm.
        skshogun 9y ago
        I check Twitter maybe 5 times a day. "Algo ordered" tweets show if I won't check my feed for two days. I'm from Slovakia so maybe that's the reason - Twitter is testing different features in different countries. In fact, Slovakia has new FB feed for months now.
bogomipz 9y ago
>"Video is, primarily, a passive experience. You tend to just sit back and watch it. And while you're watching it, you're not usually liking or comment or speaking with friends." And how is this different than the passive experience of scrolling endlessly through people's vacation pictures, food pictures and baby pictures? Is clicking on a blue thumb icon really an "active" experience. Is writing a one lime comment about the picture of someones hamburger or their vacation shots really engaging with friends? This is no more of an active social interaction than a bag of potato chips is a meal. I feel like the genie is out of the bottle and it's not going back in, regardless of these PR contrivances to convince us otherwise. However, I'm sure in the next 6 month'z Zuckerberg will be on a press junket telling us all that "the problem is fixed" and that their data shows that people are having meaningful experiences on FB and that FB is bringing people together.
muppetman 9y ago
Bit late Facebook. Most people have mostly given up on Facebook now.
- giarc 9y ago
  1.4 billion daily active users. Your use of the phrase "most people" is not in line with reality.
  - tzakrajs 9y ago
    I don't believe those are real users after the crazy amounts of bots I saw during the US election.
    - giarc 9y ago
      I'm not sure how you could see enough bots to actually put a dent in the 1.4 billion user number. Maybe you suspect you saw 100, maybe even a 1000, maybe 100,000 bots. Which is 0.007% of their users.
      - tzakrajs 9y ago
        My experience is just a small sample, like a thimbleful of water from a firehose, but it may be representative of the larger picture.
  - DashRattlesnake 9y ago
    It definitely seems to be loosing popularity in the US with the most profitable demographics. Facebook became dominant because it had an aura of exclusivity and successfully captured some trend-setting demographics. If it loses those, no amount of users accessing it through Free Basics is going to make up for it.
  - bogomipz 9y ago
    DAUs? Really? Do you have a citation for that figure?
balls187 9y ago
My interpretation is this: Facebook is now going to charge advertisers a lot more money to appear on Newsfeeds. Eventually the newsfeed will become polluted again, and Facebook will announce sweeping changes to address this and the cycle will continue.
DocG 9y ago
this correlates a bit. In my circle common is to use fb only as messaging service. most friends dont have fb app even installed anymore as the news feed is trash. I assume this move is to try to get these users back.
bwb 9y ago
Thank god, maybe I will actually want to use FB instead of feeling like I have too because everyone is on it for uses x y and z. It used to actually be a fun place to go and catch up with friends who are in different time zones etc.
lostmsu 9y ago
So they figured people tolerate irrelevant posts about their friends, which their friends did not share (Facebook users them to retain attention), more, than irrelevant videos?

52 points by sus_007 9y ago

Never forget that Facebook has "tweaked" its newsfeed to specifically make hundreds of thousands of people feel sad and depressed for days or months, just to see if they could. And then they bragged about how great they are in a published paper that violated all ethics and morals worldwide. Why will I see less video, and more from friends? Because I won't be on facebook. Edit: From FTA: > But the other is a lot of the research that we've done and the research that's out there in the field and in academia that we've read suggests that online interacting with people is positively correlated with a lot of measures of well-being, whereas passively consuming media content online is less so. They do their own research on users, by modifying their news feed and measuring their emotions with sentiment analysis. You are not just a product they sell, you are also a product they experiment on. It's not worth it. Edit 2: On the secret psychological experiments that Facebook executes to torture your mind: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/30/technology/facebook-tinkers-with-users-emotions-in-news-feed-experiment-stirring-outcry.html https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/30/technology/facebook-tinke... The real kicker, is that by using Facebook they argue that you give consent to them to conduct unlimited psychological experiments on you in secret. > It argued that its 1.28 billion monthly users gave blanket consent to the company’s research as a condition of using the service.

officemonkey 9y ago
"Contagious" by Jonah Berger talks about how anger and anxiety makes people share memes. I find that Facebook and the organizations that use it are NOT interested in my mental health. They're interested in triggering my sharing response. I quit FB and my mental health improved. I don't mind using Goodreads because Amazon and I have the same goal: they want me to buy and read books, and guess what? So do I.
- tzakrajs 9y ago
  I also have experience a drop in my basal anxiety since cutting out Facebook. I also learned, since being gone for a month or so, that many of those people aren't really interested in talking with me if it takes leaving the Facebook ecosystem. They can stay. Good riddance to all of it.
  - officemonkey 9y ago
    It also turns out that group text messaging is included on your phone. So anyone you _really_ want to talk to is _always_ nearby.

kardos 9y ago

This just reinforces the idea that Facebook has long jumped the shark -- they think their role is to orchestrate your interactions with friends. Not looking forward to 'ostracism-as-a-service'...

skybrian 9y ago

If they wanted to put users in control they'd let us filter out all videos. Instead it's ranking algorithm knows best.

sgwealti 9y ago
This! I don't want to see any video content.
- giarc 9y ago
  I'm fine with video, but I'd like the volume control to be single video specific. Right now, if you watch and listen to one video, the volume remains on for the remaining videos that autoplay when you scroll by. I'd prefer that volume is off unless I tap on a video.

CPLX 9y ago

Why don't they just give us the ability to customize what we want to run on our feed? Like we could choose chronological, controversial, event based, whatever, I'm sure they could be creative, some could be algorithms. They could keep the default they have now which most people wouldn't change. Then they could inject ads by whatever means they want and we could check them out or click on them or ignore them as we see fit and they could make a little money. This isn't one of those "Why don't they just..." type posts where it's obvious why not. It's a serious question, like why can't they do this? I mean presumably there's some answer where they say that they have tested it and the current scheme increases engagement, or something like that. That seems unconvincing though, clearly there's a problem here they are trying to address. It's a piece of software, can't they add some controls to how people use it?

thrusong 9y ago
I remember back in 2007 there was a control panel for News Feed that looked almost like a mixing board with faders. There were several in a row with different icons above (relationship status, photos, etc) and you'd move each one up or down depending on which content you preferred to see and others you didn't care about. My news feed got a lot better after tweaking that, but they soon did away with it.
jwong_ 9y ago
Giving options for users is a slippery slope to making their application hard to use/give less control to them. In its current state, I don't see any social media websites offering control of their feed. They want to provide the maximum revenue to themselves, which means driving engagement numbers and eye time. I imagine the majority of people spend much more time when these algorithms are working, even if they're just idling scrolling. What they're trying to address is flukes in that algo -- they want to keep their pie and eat it too. They want the high engagement numbers and are trying to combat the negatives that are making headlines. I'd definitely like to see a social media site that's more about intentional interactions versus a raw numbers game of trying to keep me on.
JAFTEM 9y ago
I don't think it's in Facebook's interest to lose control of how they make revenue.

ikeboy 9y ago

Haven't seen any mention of it, but it would be in line with these goals to rank posts with lots of angry reacts or angry reacts to comments worse. Wonder if that's going to be a factor.

nacho2sweet 9y ago

They obviously have metrics that long time users like myself are quitting and opting out and are getting scared. Their own employees probably hate the feed and the product, and I can't see how they couldn't. Everyone in that office probably feels shitty and raged up all day.

tzakrajs 9y ago
I second your sentiments, albeit unfounded by a source. The employee morale at Facebook must be suffering. I have stopped caring about being hirable there ever since I realized the negative impact their product has had on my life.
igravious 9y ago
Your comment is filled with conjecture.

fogzen 9y ago

Not being in control of what I see is why I stopped using Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. I want to control what is in my feed, and I want it in chronological order. Twitter and Facebook make me feel passive and helpless. I use reddit because I’m in control: I only see what I subscribe to, and I can switch between popular and chronological.

skshogun 9y ago
You can still switch between algorithmic and chronological order on Twitter. At least on their mobile website
- fogzen 9y ago
  Are you sure? I have “show best tweets first” turned off and my tweets are not in chronological order after signing in to check right now.
  - skshogun 9y ago
    From time to time, it shows 5 random older tweets on top. But everything else is in chronological order.
    - fogzen 9y ago
      I have tweets out of chronological order 20-30+ tweets down from the top... I’m assuming it’s different for you because you check Twitter often? In either case the feed is most definitely not in chronological order, but determined by an opaque, secret algorithm.
      - skshogun 9y ago
        I check Twitter maybe 5 times a day. "Algo ordered" tweets show if I won't check my feed for two days. I'm from Slovakia so maybe that's the reason - Twitter is testing different features in different countries. In fact, Slovakia has new FB feed for months now.

bogomipz 9y ago

>"Video is, primarily, a passive experience. You tend to just sit back and watch it. And while you're watching it, you're not usually liking or comment or speaking with friends." And how is this different than the passive experience of scrolling endlessly through people's vacation pictures, food pictures and baby pictures? Is clicking on a blue thumb icon really an "active" experience. Is writing a one lime comment about the picture of someones hamburger or their vacation shots really engaging with friends? This is no more of an active social interaction than a bag of potato chips is a meal. I feel like the genie is out of the bottle and it's not going back in, regardless of these PR contrivances to convince us otherwise. However, I'm sure in the next 6 month'z Zuckerberg will be on a press junket telling us all that "the problem is fixed" and that their data shows that people are having meaningful experiences on FB and that FB is bringing people together.

muppetman 9y ago

Bit late Facebook. Most people have mostly given up on Facebook now.

giarc 9y ago
1.4 billion daily active users. Your use of the phrase "most people" is not in line with reality.
- tzakrajs 9y ago
  I don't believe those are real users after the crazy amounts of bots I saw during the US election.
  - giarc 9y ago
    I'm not sure how you could see enough bots to actually put a dent in the 1.4 billion user number. Maybe you suspect you saw 100, maybe even a 1000, maybe 100,000 bots. Which is 0.007% of their users.
    - tzakrajs 9y ago
      My experience is just a small sample, like a thimbleful of water from a firehose, but it may be representative of the larger picture.
- DashRattlesnake 9y ago
  It definitely seems to be loosing popularity in the US with the most profitable demographics. Facebook became dominant because it had an aura of exclusivity and successfully captured some trend-setting demographics. If it loses those, no amount of users accessing it through Free Basics is going to make up for it.
- bogomipz 9y ago
  DAUs? Really? Do you have a citation for that figure?

balls187 9y ago

My interpretation is this: Facebook is now going to charge advertisers a lot more money to appear on Newsfeeds. Eventually the newsfeed will become polluted again, and Facebook will announce sweeping changes to address this and the cycle will continue.

DocG 9y ago

this correlates a bit. In my circle common is to use fb only as messaging service. most friends dont have fb app even installed anymore as the news feed is trash. I assume this move is to try to get these users back.

bwb 9y ago

Thank god, maybe I will actually want to use FB instead of feeling like I have too because everyone is on it for uses x y and z. It used to actually be a fun place to go and catch up with friends who are in different time zones etc.

lostmsu 9y ago

So they figured people tolerate irrelevant posts about their friends, which their friends did not share (Facebook users them to retain attention), more, than irrelevant videos?