4 ms·

I see it myself. I used to see people’s baby pictures and vacation pictures on Facebook. Now it’s mostly people breathlessly writing about the Mueller investiga

I see it myself. I used to see people’s baby pictures and vacation pictures on Facebook. Now it’s mostly people breathlessly writing about the Mueller investigation or other pointless political shit. My visits have probably dropped 1/3 or more.

russh 8y ago
I stopped using it when I noticed most of the stuff showing up was pointless political shit and less and less about the people I know.
code_duck 8y ago
How many friends do you have on there? Facebook shows you a tiny percentage of the content added to your network, including repeating items way before they have run out. If the News Feed team is trying to show me what I actually want to see, and not what they think will get the most interaction, ad clicks or time out of me, they are doing a terrible job. I find that the items displayed do not give me an accurate view of what my connections are posting. Often when I check the pages of in-person friends, while Facebook has been showing inane political posts by people I barely know, I have not been presented with the actually relevant and interesting activity my (real) friends have posted during the same time, or more recently. I have unfollowed, blocked, and hidden so many stories about guns and politics, yet Facebook manages to find new friends I’ve never heard of with similar stories for my newsfeed. Ever since 2016, at least, I feel like politics is shoved in my face every time I go to Facebook, provoking me to interact with strangers regarding my opinions in one of the worst venues that one can do that. I think they may be chasing interaction, regardless whether it’s positive our negative. Another wild theory is that they want to gather information about members’ reaction to politics, as it is not as lucrative to record reactions to someone’s cousin’s baby photos. The other alternatives mean they are very bad at their jobs, so I’m not sure.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > If the News Feed team is trying to show me what I actually want to see, and not what they think will get the most interaction, ad clicks or time out of me, they are doing a terrible job. The News Feed believed that interaction reveals a preference for seeing something. Even though they added more icons so that you weren't thumbs-upping your friends personal tragedies to indicate that they matter to you, interactions all mean “like” in the sense of “I like Facebook relaying this content to me”.
  - code_duck 8y ago
    Sure, that’s what I mean by chasing interaction regardless of whether it’s negative or positive. If you comment on something, they show you more items like that, assuming you like to comment on those things. My impression was that Facebook’s user behaviors analysis is way more detailed than that, though. There are the specific negative indicators you can give to them such as hiding stories, which even says it will make them show fewer stories like that one, and unfollowing people. When you unfollow someone, surely Facebook attempts to analyze why? Neither of these seem to have an impact on the type of items shown to me.
mistermann 8y ago
If FB categorized posts with some ML algorithm and allowed people to filter things out that they don't like (politics), it would be a far more pleasant platform, but then I doubt they'd want to give users that kind of power as it could interfere with addictiveness.
perl4ever 8y ago
Facebook can and does distort your perception of what a friend posts by selecting only the shares of "pointless political shit" from everything they post. Because that's what gets the engagement metrics up, I believe.
wvenable 8y ago
Facebook is not the only place on the Internet that seems to be "poisoned by politics". A few of my hangouts that survived a few presidential elections are now just total wastelands with everyone who was intelligent or not a troll driven off.
imartin2k 8y ago
Baby and vacation pictures are now shown & consumed on Instagram. It’s basically the new Facebook without the political debates.

russh 8y ago

I stopped using it when I noticed most of the stuff showing up was pointless political shit and less and less about the people I know.

code_duck 8y ago

How many friends do you have on there? Facebook shows you a tiny percentage of the content added to your network, including repeating items way before they have run out. If the News Feed team is trying to show me what I actually want to see, and not what they think will get the most interaction, ad clicks or time out of me, they are doing a terrible job. I find that the items displayed do not give me an accurate view of what my connections are posting. Often when I check the pages of in-person friends, while Facebook has been showing inane political posts by people I barely know, I have not been presented with the actually relevant and interesting activity my (real) friends have posted during the same time, or more recently. I have unfollowed, blocked, and hidden so many stories about guns and politics, yet Facebook manages to find new friends I’ve never heard of with similar stories for my newsfeed. Ever since 2016, at least, I feel like politics is shoved in my face every time I go to Facebook, provoking me to interact with strangers regarding my opinions in one of the worst venues that one can do that. I think they may be chasing interaction, regardless whether it’s positive our negative. Another wild theory is that they want to gather information about members’ reaction to politics, as it is not as lucrative to record reactions to someone’s cousin’s baby photos. The other alternatives mean they are very bad at their jobs, so I’m not sure.

dragonwriter 8y ago
> If the News Feed team is trying to show me what I actually want to see, and not what they think will get the most interaction, ad clicks or time out of me, they are doing a terrible job. The News Feed believed that interaction reveals a preference for seeing something. Even though they added more icons so that you weren't thumbs-upping your friends personal tragedies to indicate that they matter to you, interactions all mean “like” in the sense of “I like Facebook relaying this content to me”.
- code_duck 8y ago
  Sure, that’s what I mean by chasing interaction regardless of whether it’s negative or positive. If you comment on something, they show you more items like that, assuming you like to comment on those things. My impression was that Facebook’s user behaviors analysis is way more detailed than that, though. There are the specific negative indicators you can give to them such as hiding stories, which even says it will make them show fewer stories like that one, and unfollowing people. When you unfollow someone, surely Facebook attempts to analyze why? Neither of these seem to have an impact on the type of items shown to me.

mistermann 8y ago

If FB categorized posts with some ML algorithm and allowed people to filter things out that they don't like (politics), it would be a far more pleasant platform, but then I doubt they'd want to give users that kind of power as it could interfere with addictiveness.

perl4ever 8y ago

Facebook can and does distort your perception of what a friend posts by selecting only the shares of "pointless political shit" from everything they post. Because that's what gets the engagement metrics up, I believe.

wvenable 8y ago

Facebook is not the only place on the Internet that seems to be "poisoned by politics". A few of my hangouts that survived a few presidential elections are now just total wastelands with everyone who was intelligent or not a troll driven off.

imartin2k 8y ago

Baby and vacation pictures are now shown & consumed on Instagram. It’s basically the new Facebook without the political debates.