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>Frances Haugen: So, you know, you have your phone. You might see only 100 pieces of content if you sit and scroll on for, you know, five minutes. But Facebook

>Frances Haugen: So, you know, you have your phone. You might see only 100 pieces of content if you sit and scroll on for, you know, five minutes. But Facebook has thousands of options it could show you. >The algorithm picks from those options based on the kind of content you've engaged with the most in the past. This is the primary reason I stopped using Facebook. I did everything I could to signal I did not wish to see political content - unfollow people, hide posts, even unfriend and block people. Next thing I'd see on the News Feed? The exact same irritating political posts, now from some person I barely even knew. Meanwhile I'd manually look at the profiles of people I actually knew in real life and cared about, and major events I would love to have known about happened in their lives weeks before.

lanevorockz 5y ago
The reason the algorithm does this is simple, they want to trigger an obsessive compulsive behaviour. The irritating content provokes you to engage and that's how a lot of their profit is made.
- temp234 5y ago
  You are right that Facebook gets engagement by irritating people, but this isn't an example of obsessive compulsive behavior on the part of the user, just negativity bias maybe. OCD is a specific and potentially life-ruining condition if it goes untreated. It takes people years and years to get diagnosed because almost nobody knows how to recognize OCD or thinks that it's something it isn't and the longer OCD goes untreated the harder it is to fix. I don't think most people mean anything malicious by calling any old high standard or repetitive action OCD but it's really worth getting a clear understanding of what OCD is because maybe you'll help save another person, or even yourself, from pure living hell. https://www.madeofmillions.com/conditions/obsessive-compulsive-disorder https://www.madeofmillions.com/conditions/obsessive-compulsi... Mindfulness/awareness practice sometimes is used as part of OCD treatment as a resource alongside ERP, and mindfulness is broadly useful to people, and might be good for getting away from a negative feed. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31505967/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31505967/
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
taurath 5y ago
Hit the nail on the head there. It’s impossible to actually get what was the damn promise of Facebook to begin with, and instead everyone gets practically drugged with crap because it makes Mark more money.
- mlang23 5y ago
  Well, same applies to YouTube. Most of the ads I get in the past 6 months are absolutely borderline scam.
  - noasaservice 5y ago
    Install ublock origin. No ads. Think of it as anti-malware for the web.
- mszcz 5y ago
  Aside from the mountains of odorless excrement I started seeing on facebook, this was the other reason I quit. It became unusable because once I scrolled past something it was next to impossible to find it again by either scrolling up or searching. Instead of seeing what people were up to I started seeing things they thought would keep me on the platform for as long as possible. Looking at it now, at least to me, it seems obvious that the purpose of facebook has changed from "make money by showing people what their friends are up to" to "keep those dumb fucks as long as possible by whatever means possible to make as much fucking money as possible, everything else be dammed". And this is being generous with their beginning.
  - bihaqo 5y ago
    Yes! I always wanted smart feeds to have "search in the posts you've seen" feature, why can't they just do it?
    - mszcz 5y ago
      I'd guess that it's better for engagement for you to keep looking for it for minutes on end. Who knows, maybe you'll happen upon just the right, rage-inducing, useless post that might keep you on for longer.
cblconfederate 5y ago
that's also the reason why facebook's moderation should be considered political manipulation: Facebook's raw material, user posts, cover all sides of the political spectrum, giving facebook the ability to shape the discussion to whichever direction they like
- erlich 5y ago
  Which is why maximizing profits is a good thing. It’s unbiased. These whistleblowers are actually arguing for moderating to their political world view. Extremism is on both sides.
hef19898 5y ago
Well, I think one reason could be the content you want to see isn't paid for by someone.
yholio 5y ago
People in your social bubble clearly don't care too much about major personal events, but do care about politics. It's what your friends have in common, and what Facebook will deem important. You are just a statistical anomaly.
- NGRhodes 5y ago
  How do you know that and its not Facebook making that choice (based on poor decisions) ?
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  That's the point of this discussion, and the significance of dumping these papers in the open: Facebook's concept of what your friends deem important is decided by Facebook, not by your friends. For example, if Facebook takes a global "Politics sells impressions" signal and applies it to your social network, the result would be over-sampling political content relative to the amount friends actually share it (with possible positive-feedback-loop consequences).
erlich 5y ago
YouTube is exactly the same. You have to install a browser extension to block politics from your suggested videos. Twitter is great because they have “blocked words”. I maxed out my 200 words though and have to constantly swap them. It’s undoubtedly true that they make huge money from hate and divisiveness. This is not whistleblowing though. They are not breaking laws. And everyone already knows this. People can choose if they want to work there or not. Just like at a cigarette company or fast food company or pharma company. If things should be changed, the public should vote to regulate. But they ain’t doing that. So it’s up to parents to educate their kids about personal responsibility and addiction.
- spywaregorilla 5y ago
  I used to criticize youtube for this, but its really pretty easy to tune out the politics by saying "not interested". This is unfortunately not the same as a downvote, which is effectively saying "show me more of this, I want to hate its siblings too"
  - erlich 5y ago
    The problem is that if you watch a news clip for informational purposes, say you want to know information about lockdown restrictions easing, you will get sucked into the most addictive news content. It takes a lot of self-restraint not to click on some of the accompanying recommended videos, they are all carefully designed to make you click. And people's ability to self-restrain varies with mood. They are ready to catch you when your mood dips, or you are in an extremely boring situation.
- Maarten88 5y ago
  > If things should be changed, the public should vote to regulate. How can the public form an opinion if the information they get about it is skewed by the affected companies? What if their politicians get “donations” from the companies that need regulation, to influence them into not doing so? Catch-22
  - erlich 5y ago
atraac 5y ago
I recently had an issue with Facebook feed similar to yours. I've suddenly had my feed full of... Beatles fanpages. All kinds of 'old music' fanpages, Beatles, Queen, Nirvana etc. I don't even listen to them, I have never liked any of them, hell, I didn't even google anything like that. For last 2 months I've specifically marked every such suggestion as Not relevant. And it still shows me that stuff. Every, single day... Every 2nd or 3rd post is a suggestion of some page that praises Freddie Mercury or some other 'legendary' band, singer, performer. I just don't get it...
- notpachet 5y ago
  C'mon... admit it... these bands are starting to grow on you... slip out that credit card, my friend... that's right... just leave it sitting there beside you on the desk so it's handy... now a little more Queen... Mamaaaaa... Bohemian Rhapsody, now on Netflix... Oooooo... 20% off this commemorative mug...
- ThrowMeXY 5y ago
  In my 40+ years I never cared for any type of football, but my feed is full of news regarding different European clubs, Munich, Paris, you name it. Disclaimer: I am from a home town where football is super popular.
mrjin 5y ago
Have always been curious why people use Facebook. Personally I don't believe most of my life should ever concern most of my connections(to be clear, the people I know and know me too), so don't event mention those I've no idea who. I know quite a few people who will take pictures of what ever they are doing and share. They might think they are doing something fancy, I can get that. But, how does that concern other people, I don't know.
- kumarvvr 5y ago
  True. Most people dont care about lives of people other than those in their immediate or important circle. FB also realized this. Because, initially, FB was all about getting posts from friends. I suspect data revealed that this sort of algorithms created pockets of well connected people. Hardly any use to advertisers. So you have the FB that is what it is. A massive cesspool of shit.
- pookieinc 5y ago
  As someone who has moved to the middle east (from the bay area), a large portion of this society heavily relies on Facebook, particularly for FB groups and also FB marketplace. Aside from that, this entire society basically functions on Instagram for any news / personal connections, but as it relates to Facebook, having groups is a great way to connect with people and ask questions and since we don't really have a good alternative to Craigslist here, FB marketplace fills that void. That said, I'm sure people here use Facebook for other reasons, but anecdotally, this is what I'm seeing. Instagram and Facebook aside, the most used app I've found here is WhatsApp, so the society here is deeply integrated into the Facebook web of services
  - barrenko 5y ago
    Facebook is like an octopus on your brain.
- bayindirh 5y ago
  > Have always been curious why people use Facebook. It used to be a great communication tool via "Facebook Groups", then people moved to other platforms and our groups lost their critical mass, and all gone silent. In these days I'm just occasionally sharing photos I'm taking with an international group of friends for showing each other nice things. It also reminds some birthdays to me, so that's nice.
AlexandrB 5y ago
I find this to be a problem with a lot of (all?) social media products. Lack of user control over the experience makes them less of a "bicycle for the mind" and more of a "chain gang for the advertisers".
intrasight 5y ago
>I did everything I could to signal You don't want to "signal" - you want to "filter". So install FBP and filter out all the stuff you don't want. For me, it made FB like it was a decade ago and thus usable for it's original intent.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
mbesto 5y ago
Follow @FacebooksTop10 and you'll see this in action: https://twitter.com/facebookstop10?lang=en https://twitter.com/facebookstop10?lang=en
ansh_nanda 5y ago
would you use Facebook if you could create custom feeds?

lanevorockz 5y ago

The reason the algorithm does this is simple, they want to trigger an obsessive compulsive behaviour. The irritating content provokes you to engage and that's how a lot of their profit is made.

temp234 5y ago
You are right that Facebook gets engagement by irritating people, but this isn't an example of obsessive compulsive behavior on the part of the user, just negativity bias maybe. OCD is a specific and potentially life-ruining condition if it goes untreated. It takes people years and years to get diagnosed because almost nobody knows how to recognize OCD or thinks that it's something it isn't and the longer OCD goes untreated the harder it is to fix. I don't think most people mean anything malicious by calling any old high standard or repetitive action OCD but it's really worth getting a clear understanding of what OCD is because maybe you'll help save another person, or even yourself, from pure living hell. https://www.madeofmillions.com/conditions/obsessive-compulsive-disorder https://www.madeofmillions.com/conditions/obsessive-compulsi... Mindfulness/awareness practice sometimes is used as part of OCD treatment as a resource alongside ERP, and mindfulness is broadly useful to people, and might be good for getting away from a negative feed. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31505967/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31505967/
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

taurath 5y ago

Hit the nail on the head there. It’s impossible to actually get what was the damn promise of Facebook to begin with, and instead everyone gets practically drugged with crap because it makes Mark more money.

mlang23 5y ago
Well, same applies to YouTube. Most of the ads I get in the past 6 months are absolutely borderline scam.
- noasaservice 5y ago
  Install ublock origin. No ads. Think of it as anti-malware for the web.
mszcz 5y ago
Aside from the mountains of odorless excrement I started seeing on facebook, this was the other reason I quit. It became unusable because once I scrolled past something it was next to impossible to find it again by either scrolling up or searching. Instead of seeing what people were up to I started seeing things they thought would keep me on the platform for as long as possible. Looking at it now, at least to me, it seems obvious that the purpose of facebook has changed from "make money by showing people what their friends are up to" to "keep those dumb fucks as long as possible by whatever means possible to make as much fucking money as possible, everything else be dammed". And this is being generous with their beginning.
- bihaqo 5y ago
  Yes! I always wanted smart feeds to have "search in the posts you've seen" feature, why can't they just do it?
  - mszcz 5y ago
    I'd guess that it's better for engagement for you to keep looking for it for minutes on end. Who knows, maybe you'll happen upon just the right, rage-inducing, useless post that might keep you on for longer.

cblconfederate 5y ago

that's also the reason why facebook's moderation should be considered political manipulation: Facebook's raw material, user posts, cover all sides of the political spectrum, giving facebook the ability to shape the discussion to whichever direction they like

erlich 5y ago
Which is why maximizing profits is a good thing. It’s unbiased. These whistleblowers are actually arguing for moderating to their political world view. Extremism is on both sides.

hef19898 5y ago

Well, I think one reason could be the content you want to see isn't paid for by someone.

yholio 5y ago

People in your social bubble clearly don't care too much about major personal events, but do care about politics. It's what your friends have in common, and what Facebook will deem important. You are just a statistical anomaly.

NGRhodes 5y ago
How do you know that and its not Facebook making that choice (based on poor decisions) ?
shadowgovt 5y ago
That's the point of this discussion, and the significance of dumping these papers in the open: Facebook's concept of what your friends deem important is decided by Facebook, not by your friends. For example, if Facebook takes a global "Politics sells impressions" signal and applies it to your social network, the result would be over-sampling political content relative to the amount friends actually share it (with possible positive-feedback-loop consequences).

erlich 5y ago

YouTube is exactly the same. You have to install a browser extension to block politics from your suggested videos. Twitter is great because they have “blocked words”. I maxed out my 200 words though and have to constantly swap them. It’s undoubtedly true that they make huge money from hate and divisiveness. This is not whistleblowing though. They are not breaking laws. And everyone already knows this. People can choose if they want to work there or not. Just like at a cigarette company or fast food company or pharma company. If things should be changed, the public should vote to regulate. But they ain’t doing that. So it’s up to parents to educate their kids about personal responsibility and addiction.

spywaregorilla 5y ago
I used to criticize youtube for this, but its really pretty easy to tune out the politics by saying "not interested". This is unfortunately not the same as a downvote, which is effectively saying "show me more of this, I want to hate its siblings too"
- erlich 5y ago
  The problem is that if you watch a news clip for informational purposes, say you want to know information about lockdown restrictions easing, you will get sucked into the most addictive news content. It takes a lot of self-restraint not to click on some of the accompanying recommended videos, they are all carefully designed to make you click. And people's ability to self-restrain varies with mood. They are ready to catch you when your mood dips, or you are in an extremely boring situation.
Maarten88 5y ago
> If things should be changed, the public should vote to regulate. How can the public form an opinion if the information they get about it is skewed by the affected companies? What if their politicians get “donations” from the companies that need regulation, to influence them into not doing so? Catch-22
- erlich 5y ago

atraac 5y ago

I recently had an issue with Facebook feed similar to yours. I've suddenly had my feed full of... Beatles fanpages. All kinds of 'old music' fanpages, Beatles, Queen, Nirvana etc. I don't even listen to them, I have never liked any of them, hell, I didn't even google anything like that. For last 2 months I've specifically marked every such suggestion as Not relevant. And it still shows me that stuff. Every, single day... Every 2nd or 3rd post is a suggestion of some page that praises Freddie Mercury or some other 'legendary' band, singer, performer. I just don't get it...

notpachet 5y ago
C'mon... admit it... these bands are starting to grow on you... slip out that credit card, my friend... that's right... just leave it sitting there beside you on the desk so it's handy... now a little more Queen... Mamaaaaa... Bohemian Rhapsody, now on Netflix... Oooooo... 20% off this commemorative mug...
ThrowMeXY 5y ago
In my 40+ years I never cared for any type of football, but my feed is full of news regarding different European clubs, Munich, Paris, you name it. Disclaimer: I am from a home town where football is super popular.

mrjin 5y ago

Have always been curious why people use Facebook. Personally I don't believe most of my life should ever concern most of my connections(to be clear, the people I know and know me too), so don't event mention those I've no idea who. I know quite a few people who will take pictures of what ever they are doing and share. They might think they are doing something fancy, I can get that. But, how does that concern other people, I don't know.

kumarvvr 5y ago
True. Most people dont care about lives of people other than those in their immediate or important circle. FB also realized this. Because, initially, FB was all about getting posts from friends. I suspect data revealed that this sort of algorithms created pockets of well connected people. Hardly any use to advertisers. So you have the FB that is what it is. A massive cesspool of shit.
pookieinc 5y ago
As someone who has moved to the middle east (from the bay area), a large portion of this society heavily relies on Facebook, particularly for FB groups and also FB marketplace. Aside from that, this entire society basically functions on Instagram for any news / personal connections, but as it relates to Facebook, having groups is a great way to connect with people and ask questions and since we don't really have a good alternative to Craigslist here, FB marketplace fills that void. That said, I'm sure people here use Facebook for other reasons, but anecdotally, this is what I'm seeing. Instagram and Facebook aside, the most used app I've found here is WhatsApp, so the society here is deeply integrated into the Facebook web of services
- barrenko 5y ago
  Facebook is like an octopus on your brain.
bayindirh 5y ago
> Have always been curious why people use Facebook. It used to be a great communication tool via "Facebook Groups", then people moved to other platforms and our groups lost their critical mass, and all gone silent. In these days I'm just occasionally sharing photos I'm taking with an international group of friends for showing each other nice things. It also reminds some birthdays to me, so that's nice.

AlexandrB 5y ago

I find this to be a problem with a lot of (all?) social media products. Lack of user control over the experience makes them less of a "bicycle for the mind" and more of a "chain gang for the advertisers".

intrasight 5y ago

>I did everything I could to signal You don't want to "signal" - you want to "filter". So install FBP and filter out all the stuff you don't want. For me, it made FB like it was a decade ago and thus usable for it's original intent.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

mbesto 5y ago

Follow @FacebooksTop10 and you'll see this in action: https://twitter.com/facebookstop10?lang=en https://twitter.com/facebookstop10?lang=en

ansh_nanda 5y ago

would you use Facebook if you could create custom feeds?