6 ms·

Jokes aside that this is how FB started, I wonder if this is a reaction to recent claims that FB has a general political slant, and that this might be a way to

Jokes aside that this is how FB started, I wonder if this is a reaction to recent claims that FB has a general political slant, and that this might be a way to isolate and segregate people associated with colleges.

munificent 6y ago
> I wonder if this is a reaction to recent claims that FB has a general political slant I don't want to generalize too much from my own window into Facebook, but it does look like they may be in a feedback loop. As more and more toxic conservative garbage gets reshared, progressives start ditching Facebook. That means the remaining userbase likes that stuff more, so the feed gets tuned to make it more prominent. That turns off more progressives, who drop out. Rinse, lather, repeat. When I go on Facebook now, it looks like Internet Fox News, and that's despite trying very hard to unfollow the people who reshare that stuff. Even the left-leaning content on Facebook has gotten more extreme and virulent. It's just a miserable hellhole now of two tribes screaming at each other while the feed AI fans the flames.
- ponker 6y ago
  But wouldn't that feedback loop work the other way too? That there's someone saying "as more toxic liberal garbage gets reshared, conservatives start ditching Facebook"? Leaving just the people who enjoy screaming at each other?
  - RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
    > "as more toxic liberal garbage gets reshared, conservatives start ditching Facebook" I think you misspelled "Twitter" :)
  - sevilo 6y ago
    it works both ways, the ironic thing is people on either side of the spectrum believe they're the good ones and the other side that should be removed by facebook, and don't recognize they're part of the problem themselves. I miss the days when Facebook was about sharing personal connections, stupid and fun stuff, as a shy kid in high school who didn't speak very good English, facebook has helped me made friends and connect with kids in my school as I was more comfortable talking to them online. Hard to imagine that would ever take place with the way Facebook is today, where you log on to scream at other people's political opinions which are different from yours.
    - dvtrn 6y ago
      Made a very similar joke a few weeks ago. I quote, verbatim, myself: "I can't believe this, but I actually miss when Facebook was full of baby pictures and food pictures." Finally just gave in and deleted the profile at the 1st of Sept.
  - stelfer 6y ago
    You're assuming that the reward function is giving you the community you want. In reality the reward function is to maximize engagement, which is a proxy for ad revenue. When there's an asymmetry in engagement dynamics then the whole thing drifts. The mass fallacy here is that FB is trying to build communities.
    - b_ocu 6y ago
      The "engagement" that you're talking about is causing other people to leave, so I don't know how that works in FB's advantage here. If they really wanted to maximize "engagement" they would actually hide all of the political posts and rage inducing comments and show nothing but cat pictures.
  - jcadam 6y ago
    Well, parler is seeing explosive growth for a reason (though parler is more of a twitter clone). Looks like the two tribes just can't handle being on the same social networks together anymore. So we're retreating further into our own echo chambers. This should end well.
- bmarquez 6y ago
  > As more and more toxic conservative garbage gets reshared, progressives start ditching Facebook. I think this is a function of the friends you have, and what Facebook assumes you like to see based on the pages your friends like (lookalike audience targeting). When I was more active on Facebook, there was a lot of left-wing direct action, and zero Fox News stuff. Maybe find different friends :)
  - dvtrn 6y ago
    Maybe find different friends :) Has anyone actually ever taken this advice when receiving it in the context of frustrating social media content? I see people throwing this advice around a LOT in these discussions and have always tried to find someone who actually went and did it just because someone on the internet said to. Curious how well it worked. It sounds about as useful advice as telling someone to “just” get another job after mildly venting about a rough day at the office (or on zoom, given the state of things here recently), which is something we’ve all done just to decompress I would imagine.
    - searchableguy 6y ago
      I wonder if pay to remove a post model would work well. Moderation costs money and by pay walling the report button, you can insure that only real cases are reported and take action.
      - dvtrn 6y ago
        Well there is the "Hide Post" feature, which back when I still even had a FB account I would use with extreme prejudice and can be used free of charge. It was quite helpful before finally making the decision to just leave the platform entirely. Personal curation is a thing, which I think will solve the case for a non-trivial amount of people, if more were intentional and deliberate about it, but it stops short personally of getting 'better' friends. Which...I just think is unhelpful advice unless an individual is truly and consistently harming the friendship with their actions and behaviors.
    - r00fus 6y ago

munificent 6y ago

> I wonder if this is a reaction to recent claims that FB has a general political slant I don't want to generalize too much from my own window into Facebook, but it does look like they may be in a feedback loop. As more and more toxic conservative garbage gets reshared, progressives start ditching Facebook. That means the remaining userbase likes that stuff more, so the feed gets tuned to make it more prominent. That turns off more progressives, who drop out. Rinse, lather, repeat. When I go on Facebook now, it looks like Internet Fox News, and that's despite trying very hard to unfollow the people who reshare that stuff. Even the left-leaning content on Facebook has gotten more extreme and virulent. It's just a miserable hellhole now of two tribes screaming at each other while the feed AI fans the flames.

ponker 6y ago
But wouldn't that feedback loop work the other way too? That there's someone saying "as more toxic liberal garbage gets reshared, conservatives start ditching Facebook"? Leaving just the people who enjoy screaming at each other?
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
  > "as more toxic liberal garbage gets reshared, conservatives start ditching Facebook" I think you misspelled "Twitter" :)
- sevilo 6y ago
  it works both ways, the ironic thing is people on either side of the spectrum believe they're the good ones and the other side that should be removed by facebook, and don't recognize they're part of the problem themselves. I miss the days when Facebook was about sharing personal connections, stupid and fun stuff, as a shy kid in high school who didn't speak very good English, facebook has helped me made friends and connect with kids in my school as I was more comfortable talking to them online. Hard to imagine that would ever take place with the way Facebook is today, where you log on to scream at other people's political opinions which are different from yours.
  - dvtrn 6y ago
    Made a very similar joke a few weeks ago. I quote, verbatim, myself: "I can't believe this, but I actually miss when Facebook was full of baby pictures and food pictures." Finally just gave in and deleted the profile at the 1st of Sept.
- stelfer 6y ago
  You're assuming that the reward function is giving you the community you want. In reality the reward function is to maximize engagement, which is a proxy for ad revenue. When there's an asymmetry in engagement dynamics then the whole thing drifts. The mass fallacy here is that FB is trying to build communities.
  - b_ocu 6y ago
    The "engagement" that you're talking about is causing other people to leave, so I don't know how that works in FB's advantage here. If they really wanted to maximize "engagement" they would actually hide all of the political posts and rage inducing comments and show nothing but cat pictures.
- jcadam 6y ago
  Well, parler is seeing explosive growth for a reason (though parler is more of a twitter clone). Looks like the two tribes just can't handle being on the same social networks together anymore. So we're retreating further into our own echo chambers. This should end well.
bmarquez 6y ago
> As more and more toxic conservative garbage gets reshared, progressives start ditching Facebook. I think this is a function of the friends you have, and what Facebook assumes you like to see based on the pages your friends like (lookalike audience targeting). When I was more active on Facebook, there was a lot of left-wing direct action, and zero Fox News stuff. Maybe find different friends :)
- dvtrn 6y ago
  Maybe find different friends :) Has anyone actually ever taken this advice when receiving it in the context of frustrating social media content? I see people throwing this advice around a LOT in these discussions and have always tried to find someone who actually went and did it just because someone on the internet said to. Curious how well it worked. It sounds about as useful advice as telling someone to “just” get another job after mildly venting about a rough day at the office (or on zoom, given the state of things here recently), which is something we’ve all done just to decompress I would imagine.
  - searchableguy 6y ago
    I wonder if pay to remove a post model would work well. Moderation costs money and by pay walling the report button, you can insure that only real cases are reported and take action.
    - dvtrn 6y ago
      Well there is the "Hide Post" feature, which back when I still even had a FB account I would use with extreme prejudice and can be used free of charge. It was quite helpful before finally making the decision to just leave the platform entirely. Personal curation is a thing, which I think will solve the case for a non-trivial amount of people, if more were intentional and deliberate about it, but it stops short personally of getting 'better' friends. Which...I just think is unhelpful advice unless an individual is truly and consistently harming the friendship with their actions and behaviors.
  - r00fus 6y ago