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An example in case you’re curious: I once learned about a train meme group from a friend. I’m a transit enthusiast, so I joined and I loved this group. for a wh

An example in case you’re curious: I once learned about a train meme group from a friend. I’m a transit enthusiast, so I joined and I loved this group. for a while it was one of the highlights of Facebook.com for me. I’m lib-left politically, which fit with the lefty slant of the group, but still there came to be frequent shitstorm threads all within the scope of lefty discourse. for example, upzoning vs gentrification, should we ban cars, should we eat the rich, things like that. Eventually it got to the point where I hated seeing a post from that group on my timeline because I knew it was going to be another comment shitstorm, and so I left the group. Was it a moderation issue? Was it FB optimizing for engagement? Could algorithmic moderation of inflammatory content have even helped? I don’t know, but what was one of the few things I stayed on FB for, instead became a heap of garbage with the occasional scattered gem.

lostmsu 5y ago
This is a moderation issue. Also the issue of Facebook as a product vs classic forums. A forum dedicated to transit would have subforums for political discussions, and a subforum for free for all. On Facebook I am not even sure that is possible in the same way. But implementing a whole site filtering mechanism for derogatory art sounds like an extreme measure.
- helen___keller 5y ago
  > But implementing a whole site filtering mechanism for derogatory art sounds like an extreme measure. I’m not suggesting a specific fix, but rather pointing out that I personally have difficulty with inflammatory content on FB: friends I added back in high school share inflammatory bullshit constantly, groups that I join that ostensibly appeal to my interests seem to frequently devolve into various forms of inflammatory bullshit, etc. Assuming that I’m not just unusually afflicted by bullshit, I expect in the long term and in aggregate this is a major market issue for Meta
actually_a_dog 5y ago
...should we eat the rich.... Of course we should. They make a delightful bolognese sauce. But, seriously, I don't think this phenomenon you're seeing is because of anything Facebook is doing to metaphorically stir the pot. It's because there's not a lot of left unity as a whole. Ask any 5 socialists what their ideal socialist utopia would look like, and you'll get 7 different answers. I see this all the time on similarly-oriented Reddit subs. Reddit doesn't do anything to bring people together besides provide a forum, and they certainly don't do anything to algorithmically engineer conversations to go a certain way.
- helen___keller 5y ago
  > I don't think this phenomenon you're seeing is because of anything Facebook is doing to metaphorically stir the pot. Maybe not stir the pot specifically, but it’s their user experience and they own it. Which post shows up first on my feed greatly alters the user experience, and FB has to make a decision on that. It’s not chronological, and it seems to frequently involve me seeing 3 day old shitstorms.
  - actually_a_dog 5y ago
    I see. It sounds like they are showing you posts that get a lot of activity. That does kinda make sense: if a lot of people similar to you have already interacted with a post, that's a signal that you might like it, too. But, tell me: would it make any difference to you if you saw these "3 day old shitstorms" when they were only 1 day old? If anything, what they really want you to do is discover these posts in their pre-shitstorm posts, so you can be involved in getting the shit flying. It seems like this actually represents a failure of algorithmic moderation, to me.
    - mcphage 5y ago
      > It seems like this actually represents a failure of algorithmic moderation, to me. It's a failure of a lot of things, but ultimately a failure to create a product desirable to anybody not interested in flinging shit.
david38 5y ago
Absolutely moderation. I belong to scuba diving groups and they all have different rules on off-topicness. Join or start a group that strictly prohibits political or off-topic discussions.
- tsol 5y ago
  One of the issues is sometimes when groups grow big enough the moderators start putting in sponsored posts. There is an incentive to "sell out" groups that are big enough. Other times they just become strangely political even if the group originally had nothing to do with politics. Like some people get bored of sticking to the topic after a few years, and decide to use their groups to push their opinions. It's definitely different group to group though-- some people won't experience it and others are puzzled why the "so I herd u leik mudkips" meme group they joined 10 years ago is spreading antivax images.

lostmsu 5y ago

This is a moderation issue. Also the issue of Facebook as a product vs classic forums. A forum dedicated to transit would have subforums for political discussions, and a subforum for free for all. On Facebook I am not even sure that is possible in the same way. But implementing a whole site filtering mechanism for derogatory art sounds like an extreme measure.

helen___keller 5y ago
> But implementing a whole site filtering mechanism for derogatory art sounds like an extreme measure. I’m not suggesting a specific fix, but rather pointing out that I personally have difficulty with inflammatory content on FB: friends I added back in high school share inflammatory bullshit constantly, groups that I join that ostensibly appeal to my interests seem to frequently devolve into various forms of inflammatory bullshit, etc. Assuming that I’m not just unusually afflicted by bullshit, I expect in the long term and in aggregate this is a major market issue for Meta

actually_a_dog 5y ago

...should we eat the rich.... Of course we should. They make a delightful bolognese sauce. But, seriously, I don't think this phenomenon you're seeing is because of anything Facebook is doing to metaphorically stir the pot. It's because there's not a lot of left unity as a whole. Ask any 5 socialists what their ideal socialist utopia would look like, and you'll get 7 different answers. I see this all the time on similarly-oriented Reddit subs. Reddit doesn't do anything to bring people together besides provide a forum, and they certainly don't do anything to algorithmically engineer conversations to go a certain way.

helen___keller 5y ago
> I don't think this phenomenon you're seeing is because of anything Facebook is doing to metaphorically stir the pot. Maybe not stir the pot specifically, but it’s their user experience and they own it. Which post shows up first on my feed greatly alters the user experience, and FB has to make a decision on that. It’s not chronological, and it seems to frequently involve me seeing 3 day old shitstorms.
- actually_a_dog 5y ago
  I see. It sounds like they are showing you posts that get a lot of activity. That does kinda make sense: if a lot of people similar to you have already interacted with a post, that's a signal that you might like it, too. But, tell me: would it make any difference to you if you saw these "3 day old shitstorms" when they were only 1 day old? If anything, what they really want you to do is discover these posts in their pre-shitstorm posts, so you can be involved in getting the shit flying. It seems like this actually represents a failure of algorithmic moderation, to me.
  - mcphage 5y ago
    > It seems like this actually represents a failure of algorithmic moderation, to me. It's a failure of a lot of things, but ultimately a failure to create a product desirable to anybody not interested in flinging shit.

david38 5y ago

Absolutely moderation. I belong to scuba diving groups and they all have different rules on off-topicness. Join or start a group that strictly prohibits political or off-topic discussions.

tsol 5y ago
One of the issues is sometimes when groups grow big enough the moderators start putting in sponsored posts. There is an incentive to "sell out" groups that are big enough. Other times they just become strangely political even if the group originally had nothing to do with politics. Like some people get bored of sticking to the topic after a few years, and decide to use their groups to push their opinions. It's definitely different group to group though-- some people won't experience it and others are puzzled why the "so I herd u leik mudkips" meme group they joined 10 years ago is spreading antivax images.