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I'm skeptical of claims that just blocking or unfollowing the right accounts is the solution to the problems od social media. I'm skeptical of the claim even as

by yosito 5y ago

I'm skeptical of claims that just blocking or unfollowing the right accounts is the solution to the problems od social media. I'm skeptical of the claim even as an individual, but at scale, it's nonsense. Facebook has world class engineers and scientists optimizing their platform to manipulate the masses and increase engagement. It's their entire business model. Telling people to "just block" accounts they don't want to see will never overcome that.

bluGill 5y ago
You are right to be skeptical. I spend a lot of time blocking all the garbage people are sharing on Facebook. Things have gotten a lot better since I started, but it is far too much effort. Some of my friends spend way too much time looking for things to share instead of sharing pictures of their kids, looking at pictures of my kids and then going on to live a life. These are real friends that I do want to track so I can't block them. Slowly facebook is learning that it needs to show me pictures of my friend's kids - even friends are rarely interact with though. Mostly because I've blocked everything else the algorithm might show me.
- yosito 5y ago
  > Slowly facebook is learning that it needs to show me pictures of my friend's kids You seem to be misunderstanding Facebook's goals. They don't care about showing you pictures of your friend's kids. They are using your friend's content to dangle a carrot in front of you to keep you clicking on what they want you to click on. If you've stopped clicking on ads and promoted posts, it's because they haven't yet learned what they need to show to you keep you clicking, but they will! They're dedicating all of their engineering efforts to keep people clicking.
healthysurf 5y ago
I'm working on this with a browser extension. It's very early still and mostly focused on reddit, but I have plans to use machine learning/NLP to make it a bit smarter and for it to roll out for use on Facebook too. http://healthy.surf http://healthy.surf

by yosito 5y ago

bluGill 5y ago

You are right to be skeptical. I spend a lot of time blocking all the garbage people are sharing on Facebook. Things have gotten a lot better since I started, but it is far too much effort. Some of my friends spend way too much time looking for things to share instead of sharing pictures of their kids, looking at pictures of my kids and then going on to live a life. These are real friends that I do want to track so I can't block them. Slowly facebook is learning that it needs to show me pictures of my friend's kids - even friends are rarely interact with though. Mostly because I've blocked everything else the algorithm might show me.

yosito 5y ago
> Slowly facebook is learning that it needs to show me pictures of my friend's kids You seem to be misunderstanding Facebook's goals. They don't care about showing you pictures of your friend's kids. They are using your friend's content to dangle a carrot in front of you to keep you clicking on what they want you to click on. If you've stopped clicking on ads and promoted posts, it's because they haven't yet learned what they need to show to you keep you clicking, but they will! They're dedicating all of their engineering efforts to keep people clicking.

healthysurf 5y ago

I'm working on this with a browser extension. It's very early still and mostly focused on reddit, but I have plans to use machine learning/NLP to make it a bit smarter and for it to roll out for use on Facebook too. http://healthy.surf http://healthy.surf