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It's interesting how Facebook experiences differ. To me it's a peaceful place showing mundane updates from friends and family, with zero politics. Plus, a bunch

• TrevorJ 5y ago
  >I should add that I'm not from the US. That's probably a big part of it.
• rconti 5y ago
  100% agreed. And there is nothing funnier than seeing people on "team Twitter" excitedly tweeting about how "nothing of value was lost" without any sense of irony whatsoever. To me, it's the difference between default private and default public. On both platforms you can curate your content, and arguably the worst content festers on Facebook because it is so hidden from the public eye, but it also means it doesn't have to find its way to you. Facebook as a company has had much more problematic behavior, I'd agree with that one for sure. But if there's anything we've learned from the past decade, it's the old axiom "sunlight is the best disinfectant" is completely and utterly wrong.
  • toss1 5y ago
    >>"sunlight is the best disinfectant" is completely and utterly wrong. Certainly for some types of infectant such as weapons-grade dezinformatsiya... Or at least, to achieve disinfection, that sunlight needs to be applied at intensities found on the surface of the sun vs at the surface of the earth.
• Permit 5y ago
  I suspect the original poster was not complaining about these topics showing up on their timeline; they don't want them showing up on anyone's timeline.
  • bryan_w 5y ago
    It can't show up on their timeline, mainly because they "Never had a Facebook" or "deleted their Facebook a day/month/year ago and it instantly made them better/happier/sexier"
• ppod 5y ago
  >Plus, a bunch of niche hobby groups I subscribed, full of very kind and constructive people. This is the most underrated aspect. With the caveat that you can't choose your family and schoolfriends, you get the facebook you deserve. And you know, maybe you should try a bit harder to understand your family and schoolfriends?
  • TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
    Maybe you should also try harder to understand the corporate and political system in which your family and friends live. Facebook seems to make that harder rather than easier.
• 300bps 5y ago
  I'm from the U.S. and your experience matches mine. I just have like 1 niece, 1 cousin and a friend or two that I had to unfollow. I'm still friends with them, I just don't see any of the political stuff they post. I know some people have like 500+ friends or even the max of 5,000. I keep my friend list to the 250 people I know in real life that I want to keep in touch with. Probably still melting my brain but I'm convinced it's nice to keep up with people's lives.
  • AlbertCory 5y ago
    Exactly. 150 or so for me, but the ones who insist on being political all the time have long since been muted or unfriended. And who do you know who still sends Christmas cards? That was for those people that you never see IRL. Now they're FB friends.
• thepasswordis 5y ago
  I'm from the US and have the same experience. Just glancing at my feed it's: Somebody celebrating getting out of rehab. Somebody heading to Italy for vacation. Somebody going in a hot air balloon. Somebody going to Santa Fe for vacation and asking for things to do. Somebody said last night was one of the best nights of their life. Somebody sharing progress updates on their offgrid homestead. Somebody got a new pizza oven for National pizza month Somebody going on a train ride. Somebody telling me that Dune movie tickets go on sale today (cool). A bunch of posts from a tesla owners group, laser cutter operators group, and sailing groups that I am a part of. A bunch of posts from buy nothing, and housing groups that I'm a part of. I see literally nothing related to politics. However, jumping over to twitter it's: Something about "the establishment" A news story about somebody getting shot. Something about counterterrorism strategies. North Korean FUD Something about a gunfight and a DEA agent being killed. etc. etc. Facebook seems to me to be a place where people come together and talk to each other about happy things happening in their lives (or sometimes, looking for support when sad things happen). Twitter seems like a place people go to get angry and scream at each other.
  • indianpianist 5y ago
    > Somebody got a new pizza oven for National pizza month There's a national pizza month?
    • thepasswordis 5y ago
      Apparently: https://nationaltoday.com/national-pizza-month/ https://nationaltoday.com/national-pizza-month/ But honestly: who cares. Any excuse to eat some pizza is good enough for me!
      • dvtrn 5y ago
        I picked an awful month to start dieting…again
        • OJFord 5y ago
• elzbardico 5y ago
  The thing is: if you ever engaged with political posts, facebook will make sure to show you political posts for the rest of your life, and the more likely to upset you, the better.
• ksaj 5y ago
  I feel that way about Twitter. Lots of people in my feed complain about the baggage that dominates their feeds. Mine has none. There is only one person who was bringing baggage (all men are terrible people, here is a never-ending stream of examples of what they do to make me so bitter) so I just muted them. Other than that person, the people who I've chosen to interact with don't bring these negative experiences, and hopefully appreciate that I likewise don't bring it to them. Someone else in this thread posted a similar observation to some of the people in my Twitter feed. I personally think most people already know you can refuse to follow and can mute those who make for such negative experiences. If you participate in it, of course it's going to feel that way.
  • coldcode 5y ago
    Most of my followers and followerees on twitter are artists, so it's pleasant. I ignore all the other crap.
• cmrdporcupine 5y ago
  Yep. I wouldn't say that there's no politics on my FB feed. But it's all either liberal or socialist -- because that's the consensus among my friends. And none of it is particularly nasty even when it falls out of that. It just doesn't get controversial. Also, not from the US. From Canada. Where I see the nastiness is when politics leaks into various hobby topic groups I'm on. And it's almost always Americans raising a stink (mad about masks, vaccines, "libtards" whatever)
• UncleMeat 5y ago
  Yeah. For me, the overwhelming majority of my feed is just photos of my friends' babies and children.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• keithnz 5y ago
  it's the importance of curating your social media, twitter for me is basically just tech stuff, sometimes I see the edge of war when other tech people are involved, but mostly its all about cool things happening in tech. Facebook I've limited down a bit, I've mostly stopped looking at comments on news articles (really wish there was an option to remove the ability to see comments on some pages) other than that, its pretty good, except when friends engage in war. I'm also subscribed to some atheist groups, and those are super messy at times.
• geocrasher 5y ago
  > a bunch of niche hobby groups This. I actually unfriended and blocked all my personal contacts (not because I hate them, I was just removing my personal self from the platform) and then use it only for a bunch of amateur radio related groups which are largely very civil and helpful, good folks. For many, it's an easier-to--use groups.io.
• tayistay 5y ago
  It's the aggregate experience is and its influence on society that is more important than the experience of an individual user. Twitter may seem like more of a war zone, and that's possible, but you have to actually measure things. I suspect the dark corners of Facebook are darker than Twitter, because Facebook is more siloed.
• kasajian 5y ago
  My experience on Facebook is the same, but I also have the same experience on Twitter. I follow really smart people who are in tech who have interesting things to say. That's all I see on Twitter.
• ergocoder 5y ago
  Twitter is the real warzone. If you are moderately famous, anything will be controversial. You can say "water is good for you", and I can guarantee you that someone will reply with "actually, my friend drank too much water and died". Then, the drama would ensue.
• aerosmile 5y ago
  Facebook is like a mirror. If you want to learn about yourself, look at your feed. If you see a bunch of political stuff, then it turns out that you had a weakness for political content. If you see a bunch of kittens, then you were overindexing in how you interacted with that content compared to alternatives. It's not too different from alcohol. Two different people start drinking a lot of beer in college. One grows out of it, the other becomes an alcoholic. All things being same, the latter person had a more addictive personality and should have been more careful with alcohol. To extend the alcohol analogy - some people wanted to prohibit it, but ultimately it's still here and it's just heavily regulated. You're not allowed to have it when you're young or when you're driving. Your friends will think poorly of you if you have too much of it too frequently. I wouldn't be surprised if social networks end up in a similar place.
• dunco 5y ago
  I'm in agreement that facebook is partly what you make it and experiences vary. My own experience has been generally positive; However I was a member of a niche interest group that used to be run on an old-school forum at its own domain. Over the years more and more content moved to the facebook group and there was roughly an even split when an accident by the web host lead to the total loss of the forum which could not be restored which meant all users now moved to the facebook group. The quality of material and the standard of discourse is shockingly worse on facebook than it was on the forums to the point where many interactions degrade into mudslinging. There shouldn't be too much difference between the forum/fb groups, but the only explanation I have come up with is that facebook's algorithm selects and displays content to people who would never have seen it on the forum, and some of them feel compelled to comment with either nasty or unhelpful input. On the forum I think the discovery of this content is self-directed and so only those with a genuine interest come across the post and interact with it, most others will just ignore the post title and scroll on, whereas facebook will show them the whole post with images and this makes them more likely to interact when they shouldn't. The other explanation is just that the mudslinging was always on the forum, but I did not come across it because it was not selected for me, but this goes both ways in that perhaps facebook is selecting "high-engagement" posts (with LOTS of argument) to display to me as well, thinking these will be of more interest. Whatever the cause, the difference is stark for this particular online community.