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I can't stand all the talk about this as a problem of moderation and suppressing "dangerous" content. That's a distraction and leads nowhere good. I think the
by creato 6y ago
I can't stand all the talk about this as a problem of moderation and suppressing "dangerous" content. That's a distraction and leads nowhere good.
I think the problem is that FB forces everyone into gigantic mosh pits of conversations that span whole regions of millions of people, and elevates uneducated but "engaging" hot takes for thousands or millions of people to see at a time. And most importantly, FB builds positive feedback loops into this environment.
That's why I stopped using FB quite a while ago: not because I thought some moderator somewhere wasn't doing a good job, but because friends of friends (I can only assume) spewing bullshit comments on sketchy "news" articles in comment sections with thousands of people would show up too often.
- sneak 6y agoAlgorithmic “timelines” that result in these feedback loops are themselves a form of censorship: you can’t promote some content without pushing other content down the page. Nobody reads, or can read, all of it. Promote enough high-cortisol clickbait to the top and the routine, mundane things, like the announcement of your friend’s funeral[1], won’t appear in your feed at a reasonable depth at all. 1: I’m not on Facebook any longer.
- rightbyte 6y agoYe the new algorithmic feed from ca 2014 killed Facebook usability. Since then it feels like Memebase, Reddit or something. Zuckerberg decides what you will see not your friends.
- xenadu02 6y agoIndeed... prior to the algorithmic timeline and the push for "engagement" what you saw on your timeline was posts from your friends and family. If some cousin posted a nonsense conspiracy theory you could comment on the post and there was at least the possibility of some kind of debate among your own social circle. The drive for engagement killed all of that.