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No, this isn't a consequence of the status quo newsfeed algorithm. This is a consequence of Facebook making a purposeful strategic shift away from in-network c

No, this isn't a consequence of the status quo newsfeed algorithm. This is a consequence of Facebook making a purposeful strategic shift away from in-network content to suggested content. This strategic shift was highlighted in their last earnings call as a way to compete with TikTok, whose success is partly explained by their focus on suggested content. On the earnings call, they signaled that they were shifting more to a mix of the two content styles in the coming quarters, but the OP is likely enrolled in some sort of test that is giving them 98%. See the below excerpt from Meta's Q2 earnings call: "One of the main transformations in our business right now is that social feeds are going from being driven primarily by the people and accounts you follow to increasingly also being driven by AI recommending content that you'll find interesting from across Facebook or Instagram, even if you don't follow those creators. Social content from people you know is going to remain an important part of the experience and some of our most differentiated content. But increasingly, we'll also be able to supplement that with other interesting content from across our networks. Reels is one part of this trend that focuses on the growth of short-form video as a content format."

ghostoftesla 4y ago
It makes sense tho for them to go for suggested content, because the can make you like stuff. That's their thing. It's no random thing they've been hiring psyops veterans of the afghanistan war. They can push things
bazeblackwood 4y ago
Bad strategy, imo. Sounds like they should have tried to answer why people used their product in the first place. “A competitor does it” isn’t a valid excuse—its like suggesting The French Laundry switch to fast food because McDonald’s is a competitor.
- fnordpiglet 4y ago
  I think your analogy is too generous. It’s more like putting an engine on your stapler because people buy cars more often than staplers at a higher margin despite having a monopoly in the stapler market.
- JediLuke 4y ago
- kolbe 4y ago
  They also need to be honest with themselves about whether TikTok is a competitor, or if TT has simply won a completely different business that happens to take customers' finite resources (time) from Facebook.
  - OJFord 4y ago
    When you're an ads-funded social media company, is there a difference?
  - tofflos 4y ago
    I think it's pretty cleat cut. They're competing attention farms. How we the product perceive them doesn't matter.
- mingfli 4y ago
  The French Laundry is a very niche product, which Facebook is not. I think a more apt analogy is suggesting McDonald's to include more "healthy" options or a coffee bar because the competitors do it and it's a successful business strategy.
  - rightbyte 4y ago
    More liking pushing "healthy" options in your face in the menu and hiding the BigMac & Co in some obscure small print somewhere. "Do you want plus sized carrots with your meal?"
    - mingfli 4y ago
      Not saying either is a good strategy, I'd rather see more posts from my friends than random pages. Just pointing out the analogy.
itake 4y ago
I think the crux is do users want to see in-network or out-of-network posts? FB's bet (that tiktok user behavior validates) is high quality out-of-network creates higher engagement than in-network content.
yamrzou 4y ago
Yes, here is a chronology of key events: 2020 — Facebook launches its TikTok rival, Instagram Reels: https://www.axios.com/2020/08/05/facebook-launches-its-tiktok-rival-instagram-reels https://www.axios.com/2020/08/05/facebook-launches-its-tikto... 2021 — TikTok overtakes Facebook as world's most downloaded app: https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/TikTok-overtakes-Facebook-as-world-s-most-downloaded-app https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/TikTok-overtakes... Feb. 2022 — Facebook loses users for the first time in its history — https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/02/02/facebook-earnings-meta https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/02/02/faceboo... July 2022 — Facebook and Instagram are going to show even more posts from accounts you don’t follow — https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/27/23281451/facebook-instagram-meta-recommendation-discovery-engine-ai https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/27/23281451/facebook-instagr... July 2022 — Instagram knows you don’t like its changes. It doesn’t care. — https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/07/27/instagram-video-shift-kardashian https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/07/27/instagr...
- alistairSH 4y ago
  Mid-2021, I stop using FB for anything beyond Marketplace. Mid-2022, I find Instagram to be just as useless as FB. I find I'm spending far less time on big social platforms. And a little more time in niche web forums. And I mostly feel better (sanity-wise) for it.
  - birdyrooster 4y ago
    Discord has completely displaced the need for other social media in my experience. And they get hundreds of dollars per year from me. If this isn’t a winning model, I don’t know what is.
    - sshine 4y ago
      It's a winning model. Who would have thought that paying for something is correlated with positive expectation of outcome? Someone should formalise this business model. I'm just spitballing, but I might call it: Doing business. I'm not sure what's going on with internet ads. I've blocked them everywhere I can.
wnevets 4y ago
> This is a consequence of Facebook making a purposeful strategic shift away from in-network content to suggested content. In an ironic twist these changes has made it much easier for me to stop using Facebook and Instagram. My usage was never high to begin with but some people in my life only used those apps and I wanted to stay connected. Now every single time I visit either of those apps and I see suggested content I close the app and move on with my day.
derefr 4y ago
> but the OP is likely enrolled in some sort of test that is giving them 98%. Couldn't it just be that suggested content is not only placed "between" in-network posts to achieve a certain minimum ratio, but also some small number of suggested-content posts are inserted at a constant drip into your feed (e.g. every N minutes in the feed's timeline) to ensure a certain minimum absolute amount of advertising happens per day per account? Which would mean that, if all your friends are people who don't post very much on FB any more, there could be 50 dripped in suggested-content posts (to achieve the minimum absolute suggested posts per day) for each one in-network post. Even without "ensuring a minimum absolute amount of advertising", I presume this would have to be happening on some level, to ensure that anyone who tries to use Facebook "like TikTok" (effectively an RSS reader for suggested content), ends up with a non-empty feed.
wolpoli 4y ago
Has anyone kept track of the number of times they shifted the Facebook newsfeed algorithm? At different point in time, the feed prioritized: posts from friends, posts from games from your friends, friends' sharing of links to compete with Twitter, videos to compete with Youtube, moments to compete with Snapchat, comments that friends made, posts from friends again as growth slows down I wonder what percentage of users drift off every time they shifted the algorithm.
TrevorJ 4y ago
Facebook is the fax machine. The real danger FB finds themselves in is that the initial value prop (make and maintain your friendships with less friction) is LONG gone. Instead, they are relying almost entirely on the network effect now. You have to be on Facebook because your grandma is on Facebook. This is not sustainable long-term, for obvious and perhaps morbid reasons.
- CaptainZapp 4y ago
  Since 2012, when I "deleted" my Facebook account grandma - or anybody else for that manner - needs to either call me, text me or send email. This suits me just fine and it works well for friends who actually deserve this moniker.
technion 4y ago
The difference of course is that TikTok's suggested content is generally relevant. My entire suggested feed relates to US politics. I keep getting suggestions for Second Amendment groups, "Stand your Ground" groups, pro life groups, "Isn't she beautiful" (a gun lobby group), "Texans for God" and so on. I'm Australian. I guess this is what I get for doing an occasional checkin at a place named Texas BBQ.
AOsborn 4y ago
Anecdotally, I don't think this reflects reality. A 'strategic shift' to present suggested content may be what Facebook wants to do (or would like to tell investors it is doing). However, the amount of real content being posted appears to have fallen off a cliff. This is obviously very subjective but holds true for both my own experience and friends/family who have commented. So there isn't just a similar level of content but the algorithm is displaying less - but literally everyone I know no longer posts to Facebook in remotely the same way. The only time I see regular updates are 'happy birthday' posts. Everything else has moved to other apps - mostly Instagram stories.
- 9935c101ab17a66 4y ago
  The drop in real content is astounding. It used to be the case that I’d never ever come close to the end of the content from people I actually follow when I checked Instagram, and 5-6 years ago I interacted with the app daily. (Note: I deleted my FB account 7 years ago but kept insta). Now I’m in my early thirties and I maybe open it two or three times a week — I hit the “you’ve run out of content from your friends” message in less than five minutes (and I follow ~400 people). It’s even worse because half of that five minutes is spent scrolling past the INSANE number of ads and suggested posts (most of which are terrible ads as well). My friends are still actively posting “stories,” but I can’t imagine that will last forever (stories are also littered with ads, it’s insane). Facebook has been out of ideas for a while, but it wasn’t so apparent until recently since they faced relatively soft competition, and they either acquired popular social media start ups or if they couldn’t, stole from them wholesale (snapchat). They now have a real competitor in TikTok and on the last earnings call it became clear they have no plan for regaining users / organic engagement, so they’ve decided to pump the short term financials by serving everyone a shit load of ads. Facebook’s long term prospects are bleak imo.

ghostoftesla 4y ago

It makes sense tho for them to go for suggested content, because the can make you like stuff. That's their thing. It's no random thing they've been hiring psyops veterans of the afghanistan war. They can push things

bazeblackwood 4y ago

Bad strategy, imo. Sounds like they should have tried to answer why people used their product in the first place. “A competitor does it” isn’t a valid excuse—its like suggesting The French Laundry switch to fast food because McDonald’s is a competitor.

fnordpiglet 4y ago
I think your analogy is too generous. It’s more like putting an engine on your stapler because people buy cars more often than staplers at a higher margin despite having a monopoly in the stapler market.
JediLuke 4y ago
kolbe 4y ago
They also need to be honest with themselves about whether TikTok is a competitor, or if TT has simply won a completely different business that happens to take customers' finite resources (time) from Facebook.
- OJFord 4y ago
  When you're an ads-funded social media company, is there a difference?
- tofflos 4y ago
  I think it's pretty cleat cut. They're competing attention farms. How we the product perceive them doesn't matter.
mingfli 4y ago
The French Laundry is a very niche product, which Facebook is not. I think a more apt analogy is suggesting McDonald's to include more "healthy" options or a coffee bar because the competitors do it and it's a successful business strategy.
- rightbyte 4y ago
  More liking pushing "healthy" options in your face in the menu and hiding the BigMac & Co in some obscure small print somewhere. "Do you want plus sized carrots with your meal?"
  - mingfli 4y ago
    Not saying either is a good strategy, I'd rather see more posts from my friends than random pages. Just pointing out the analogy.

itake 4y ago

I think the crux is do users want to see in-network or out-of-network posts? FB's bet (that tiktok user behavior validates) is high quality out-of-network creates higher engagement than in-network content.

yamrzou 4y ago

Yes, here is a chronology of key events: 2020 — Facebook launches its TikTok rival, Instagram Reels: https://www.axios.com/2020/08/05/facebook-launches-its-tiktok-rival-instagram-reels https://www.axios.com/2020/08/05/facebook-launches-its-tikto... 2021 — TikTok overtakes Facebook as world's most downloaded app: https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/TikTok-overtakes-Facebook-as-world-s-most-downloaded-app https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/TikTok-overtakes... Feb. 2022 — Facebook loses users for the first time in its history — https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/02/02/facebook-earnings-meta https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/02/02/faceboo... July 2022 — Facebook and Instagram are going to show even more posts from accounts you don’t follow — https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/27/23281451/facebook-instagram-meta-recommendation-discovery-engine-ai https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/27/23281451/facebook-instagr... July 2022 — Instagram knows you don’t like its changes. It doesn’t care. — https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/07/27/instagram-video-shift-kardashian https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/07/27/instagr...

alistairSH 4y ago
Mid-2021, I stop using FB for anything beyond Marketplace. Mid-2022, I find Instagram to be just as useless as FB. I find I'm spending far less time on big social platforms. And a little more time in niche web forums. And I mostly feel better (sanity-wise) for it.
- birdyrooster 4y ago
  Discord has completely displaced the need for other social media in my experience. And they get hundreds of dollars per year from me. If this isn’t a winning model, I don’t know what is.
  - sshine 4y ago
    It's a winning model. Who would have thought that paying for something is correlated with positive expectation of outcome? Someone should formalise this business model. I'm just spitballing, but I might call it: Doing business. I'm not sure what's going on with internet ads. I've blocked them everywhere I can.

wnevets 4y ago

> This is a consequence of Facebook making a purposeful strategic shift away from in-network content to suggested content. In an ironic twist these changes has made it much easier for me to stop using Facebook and Instagram. My usage was never high to begin with but some people in my life only used those apps and I wanted to stay connected. Now every single time I visit either of those apps and I see suggested content I close the app and move on with my day.

derefr 4y ago

> but the OP is likely enrolled in some sort of test that is giving them 98%. Couldn't it just be that suggested content is not only placed "between" in-network posts to achieve a certain minimum ratio, but also some small number of suggested-content posts are inserted at a constant drip into your feed (e.g. every N minutes in the feed's timeline) to ensure a certain minimum absolute amount of advertising happens per day per account? Which would mean that, if all your friends are people who don't post very much on FB any more, there could be 50 dripped in suggested-content posts (to achieve the minimum absolute suggested posts per day) for each one in-network post. Even without "ensuring a minimum absolute amount of advertising", I presume this would have to be happening on some level, to ensure that anyone who tries to use Facebook "like TikTok" (effectively an RSS reader for suggested content), ends up with a non-empty feed.

wolpoli 4y ago

Has anyone kept track of the number of times they shifted the Facebook newsfeed algorithm? At different point in time, the feed prioritized: posts from friends, posts from games from your friends, friends' sharing of links to compete with Twitter, videos to compete with Youtube, moments to compete with Snapchat, comments that friends made, posts from friends again as growth slows down I wonder what percentage of users drift off every time they shifted the algorithm.

TrevorJ 4y ago

Facebook is the fax machine. The real danger FB finds themselves in is that the initial value prop (make and maintain your friendships with less friction) is LONG gone. Instead, they are relying almost entirely on the network effect now. You have to be on Facebook because your grandma is on Facebook. This is not sustainable long-term, for obvious and perhaps morbid reasons.

CaptainZapp 4y ago
Since 2012, when I "deleted" my Facebook account grandma - or anybody else for that manner - needs to either call me, text me or send email. This suits me just fine and it works well for friends who actually deserve this moniker.

technion 4y ago

The difference of course is that TikTok's suggested content is generally relevant. My entire suggested feed relates to US politics. I keep getting suggestions for Second Amendment groups, "Stand your Ground" groups, pro life groups, "Isn't she beautiful" (a gun lobby group), "Texans for God" and so on. I'm Australian. I guess this is what I get for doing an occasional checkin at a place named Texas BBQ.

AOsborn 4y ago

Anecdotally, I don't think this reflects reality. A 'strategic shift' to present suggested content may be what Facebook wants to do (or would like to tell investors it is doing). However, the amount of real content being posted appears to have fallen off a cliff. This is obviously very subjective but holds true for both my own experience and friends/family who have commented. So there isn't just a similar level of content but the algorithm is displaying less - but literally everyone I know no longer posts to Facebook in remotely the same way. The only time I see regular updates are 'happy birthday' posts. Everything else has moved to other apps - mostly Instagram stories.

9935c101ab17a66 4y ago
The drop in real content is astounding. It used to be the case that I’d never ever come close to the end of the content from people I actually follow when I checked Instagram, and 5-6 years ago I interacted with the app daily. (Note: I deleted my FB account 7 years ago but kept insta). Now I’m in my early thirties and I maybe open it two or three times a week — I hit the “you’ve run out of content from your friends” message in less than five minutes (and I follow ~400 people). It’s even worse because half of that five minutes is spent scrolling past the INSANE number of ads and suggested posts (most of which are terrible ads as well). My friends are still actively posting “stories,” but I can’t imagine that will last forever (stories are also littered with ads, it’s insane). Facebook has been out of ideas for a while, but it wasn’t so apparent until recently since they faced relatively soft competition, and they either acquired popular social media start ups or if they couldn’t, stole from them wholesale (snapchat). They now have a real competitor in TikTok and on the last earnings call it became clear they have no plan for regaining users / organic engagement, so they’ve decided to pump the short term financials by serving everyone a shit load of ads. Facebook’s long term prospects are bleak imo.