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For years there has been a big red notification dot stuck on the FB video tab reminding me that I have some large number of shitty videos to watch. I have no id

For years there has been a big red notification dot stuck on the FB video tab reminding me that I have some large number of shitty videos to watch. I have no idea how FB decides precisely how many shitty videos it is very important that I watch. It used to be in the 40s, now it's 15. I never clicked the tab once. I actually tried to figure out how to get rid of this at some point, but it definitely wasn't a priority for FB to give me control over this. I'll never forget the open contempt Meta has shown for me as a user of their products.

guerrilla 4y ago
FB Purity. Warning, it's slow as dirt but it does all the tricks. https://www.fbpurity.com/ https://www.fbpurity.com/
- deanc 4y ago
  There have been numerous cases of fb purity users having their Facebook accounts banned. Use at your own risk as Facebook is quite clear about extensions that alter the experience being against TOS.
  - guerrilla 4y ago
    Do you have a source for that other than the developer being banned[1] in 2012? 1. https://www.fbpurity.com/news/important-news-facebooks-legal-team-have-told-me-i-am-banned-from-facebook-because-of-f-b-purity/ https://www.fbpurity.com/news/important-news-facebooks-legal...
  - fbpdev 4y ago
    This is false information. No FB Purity users have been banned because of using FBP, they may have been banned for doing other things, but I have had no reports of users being banned for using FBP. There is no documentatry evidence for your claims, and you should not go round telling people fake news like that.
    - guerrilla 4y ago
      Thank you for confirming that.
- fbpdev 4y ago
  it may be slow on firefox or firefox based browsers, but should work much faster on chrome/chromium based browsers.
  - guerrilla 4y ago
    Okay thanks, yeah this is Firefox.
Simon_O_Rourke 4y ago
> I'll never forget the open contempt Meta has shown for me as a user of their products. And as a revenue-generating set of eyeballs they can monetize and sell to said video content creators.
nanidin 4y ago
I have disabled all forms of video notifications on Facebook, but over the last few weeks I have been getting video notifications for pages I follow sporadically throughout the day. It felt very much like periodic attempts to get me back into the app, despite my direct indication that I do not want those types of notifications. I reported the spurious notifications, then eventually gave up and disabled notifications for the entire app at the OS level.
kryogen1c 4y ago
> I'll never forget the open contempt Meta has shown for me as a user of their products. Even better was when messenger split off from fb proper into its own app, but still showed a notification bubble with red exclamation marks (or some such, it's been a while) that you couldn't dismiss. clicking opened the page to install the messenger app. I deleted my account.
- wincy 4y ago
  I uninstalled the other day when I started getting notifications when someone’s story is on my feed. On messenger. That’s not a message and there is no way I found in twenty minutes of digging to turn it off. Screw that.
- yojo 4y ago
  Agreed, this is incredibly user-hostile. As a pro-tip, you can get past it on web by telling your device to request the desktop website. They have a responsive design, so it’s actually quite usable. Just emphasizes how slimy the push to the app is, though.
  - mattmanser 4y ago
    Worse still is that right now my web version is telling me I have 4 messages, but my desktop one is saying I have none. So not only hostile but incompetent.
    - fwn 4y ago
      > not only hostile but incompetent A broken feature on the mobile version nudges towards app installation, a broken feature on the desktop version does not. This means that there is some benefit for Facebook to not fix the mobile version. If a bug persists and benefits the company, we should - by principle - never assume it to be a bug. We see the same right now with reddit, where old interfaces slowly (and clearly intentionally) crumble away, permanently signalling to the user that it is time to switch to one of the interfaces with a higher ad density.
  - 4y ago
baby 4y ago
This and the newsfeed not being chronological, or the option to have it chronological being hidden from the user (that’s one of the most recurring question and feature request that internal employees ask, how crazy is that). IMO facebook could really change by creating a subscription and ensuring that people who subscribe are happy enough with the product to keep paying. I think that recenters the incentives towards building something for the user. Another meta problem is that there seem to be no authoritative product person that can force his/her vision on the product so you get hundreds of visions colliding and fighting for changes. IMO it’s much more valuable to have a coherent vision being enforced for the product, otherwise you get this frankenstein-like collection of apps. Finally, the fact that HN is such a hater of facebook means that most fb engineers have deserted HN and they’re not reading the excellent ideas and feedback that this community sometimes provide. It’s a shame, because I still completely believe in Facebook as a good product for the world.
- Raed667 4y ago
  The assumption is that chronological feed makes for less engagement, and if your business model is to sell eyeballs, that creates an intensive to hide it and make your KPIs better.
  - baby 4y ago
    They’d get more money from me by making me pay for a subscription
- sweettea 4y ago
  There is a 'Most Recent' option for several years which provides chronological newsfeed: https://m.facebook.com/help/218728138156311/how-do-i-see-the-most-recent-posts-in-my-feed-on-facebook%3F/ https://m.facebook.com/help/218728138156311/how-do-i-see-the... . It isn't well known, for sure.
  - Lammy 4y ago
    “You can sort your Feed to see recent posts, but Feed will eventually return to its default setting.”
liendolucas 4y ago
> I'll never forget the open contempt Meta has shown for me as a user of their products. You can always return the contempt by extracting all our data out (provided that's important to you) and permanently shutting down you account. I believe that's the most efficient thing you can do to tell FB to go to hell. Edit: I honestly believe that any FB user this is the most harmful thing you can do to them.
- Raed667 4y ago
  I'm hostage to Meta, my grandmother uses only Messenger to call and would/can not learn any other interface. The rest of the family only chat through Whatsapp. Quitting Meta means not getting to be in those circles anymore.
  - liendolucas 4y ago
    Yes, many people suffer from this problem as well. I guess I can say what I said because I cancelled my account many many years ago (if not mistaken more than a decade ago).
  - jamiek88 4y ago
    I quit fb but WhatsApp is impossible to quit. I tried and I became socially isolated.
    - Raed667 4y ago
      I can relate. But it seems Facebook becomes more necessary if your kid's football team only shares schedules in a group, or after-school clubs, etc.. Basically you're subject to the lowest common denominator.
    - matheusmoreira 4y ago
      WhatsApp is infinitely better than Facebook though. I've never received a notification I wasn't interested in. Also, it has end-to-end encryption.
anf0 4y ago
You used to be able to hide the red notification with uBlock Origin. I don’t know if it still works though.
jorvi 4y ago
Meta refuses to give me access to- or delete my Instagram account. A few years back I changed the e-mail to a fake e-mail. I accidentally typo’d my mobile phone number due to which it now resolves with a Philippines prefix. This prevents me from verifying their ‘looks like you’re trying to do a suspicious log-in’ They won’t give access or delete my account despite: - me knowing the current password - providing old passwords - indicating to them the old e-mail address to my account - verifying that I have access to that e-mail account - verifying that I own the ‘old’ phone number to the account with a phone bill (!) - indicating I am willing to provide a scanned ID - indicating two friend on my ‘following’ list that would be willing to verify its me trying to access the account At this point I have pretty much done 5-factor authentication and they still won’t accede. Thankfully I am an EU citizen and the data commissions are currently extremely trigger happy with GDPR fines, so my hope is this forced them to resolve it, or make it cost them tens to hundreds of millions for not doing so. Fuck you and your scummy illegal practices, Meta :)
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  > the data commissions are currently extremely trigger happy with GDPR fines, so my hope is this forced them to resolve it, or make it cost them tens to hundreds of millions for not doing so. Lol: https://ruben.verborgh.org/facebook/ https://ruben.verborgh.org/facebook/
  - jorvi 4y ago
    > 2019
firecall 4y ago
I dont use Instagram, but occasionally I'll take a look to see if friends have posted anything. Then seemingly at random it starts showing me short-form sort-core porn videos. Instagram used to be about fun and creativity, now it's a trashy tabloid that's entirely made of Page 3 content.
- corobo 4y ago
  Is it actually random or is it after you've caught up? For instance mine will show friends stuff until this message, then it starts showing me the random trash. I'm guessing they're going for engagement (random content > already seen content) but it's always my cue to close the tab, quite handy https://img.imgy.org/12nq.jpg https://img.imgy.org/12nq.jpg
matheusmoreira 4y ago
> I'll never forget the open contempt Meta has shown for me as a user of their products. Yeah. They're an advertising company. They make money by spamming users with noise. Contempt for other human beings is in their DNA. They don't want you to disable the red dot. They want it there 24 hours a day bothering you until you give in and watch those ads disguised as videos just to get rid of it and find some peace. They'll actually run human experiments on their users without their informed consent just to find out the exact level of annoyance they'll tolerate without deleting their accounts in disgust. If you try to disable the red dot, they'll ban you. It's against their terms of service to not be bothered by notifications. You need to submit to this abuse if you want or need to use their services. You can still try anyway. Make a plugin to delete the dot. Then a few days later you'll find they scrambled the page structure on purpose just so you could no longer interface with it, precisely so you could not defeat their little nagging dot. "Contempt" doesn't quite do it justice. They delight in our suffering and profit off it.
- civilized 4y ago
  I would really enjoy a well-researched essay substantiating these points. I've heard bits and pieces consistent with this but when you put it so strongly it boggles the mind a bit. But it's also believable because it makes some sense of why social media is so hellish.
- Clent 4y ago
  Confidently incorrect. That isn't how any of this works.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

guerrilla 4y ago

FB Purity. Warning, it's slow as dirt but it does all the tricks. https://www.fbpurity.com/ https://www.fbpurity.com/

deanc 4y ago
There have been numerous cases of fb purity users having their Facebook accounts banned. Use at your own risk as Facebook is quite clear about extensions that alter the experience being against TOS.
- guerrilla 4y ago
  Do you have a source for that other than the developer being banned[1] in 2012? 1. https://www.fbpurity.com/news/important-news-facebooks-legal-team-have-told-me-i-am-banned-from-facebook-because-of-f-b-purity/ https://www.fbpurity.com/news/important-news-facebooks-legal...
- fbpdev 4y ago
  This is false information. No FB Purity users have been banned because of using FBP, they may have been banned for doing other things, but I have had no reports of users being banned for using FBP. There is no documentatry evidence for your claims, and you should not go round telling people fake news like that.
  - guerrilla 4y ago
    Thank you for confirming that.
fbpdev 4y ago
it may be slow on firefox or firefox based browsers, but should work much faster on chrome/chromium based browsers.
- guerrilla 4y ago
  Okay thanks, yeah this is Firefox.

Simon_O_Rourke 4y ago

> I'll never forget the open contempt Meta has shown for me as a user of their products. And as a revenue-generating set of eyeballs they can monetize and sell to said video content creators.

nanidin 4y ago

I have disabled all forms of video notifications on Facebook, but over the last few weeks I have been getting video notifications for pages I follow sporadically throughout the day. It felt very much like periodic attempts to get me back into the app, despite my direct indication that I do not want those types of notifications. I reported the spurious notifications, then eventually gave up and disabled notifications for the entire app at the OS level.

kryogen1c 4y ago

> I'll never forget the open contempt Meta has shown for me as a user of their products. Even better was when messenger split off from fb proper into its own app, but still showed a notification bubble with red exclamation marks (or some such, it's been a while) that you couldn't dismiss. clicking opened the page to install the messenger app. I deleted my account.

wincy 4y ago
I uninstalled the other day when I started getting notifications when someone’s story is on my feed. On messenger. That’s not a message and there is no way I found in twenty minutes of digging to turn it off. Screw that.
yojo 4y ago
Agreed, this is incredibly user-hostile. As a pro-tip, you can get past it on web by telling your device to request the desktop website. They have a responsive design, so it’s actually quite usable. Just emphasizes how slimy the push to the app is, though.
- mattmanser 4y ago
  Worse still is that right now my web version is telling me I have 4 messages, but my desktop one is saying I have none. So not only hostile but incompetent.
  - fwn 4y ago
    > not only hostile but incompetent A broken feature on the mobile version nudges towards app installation, a broken feature on the desktop version does not. This means that there is some benefit for Facebook to not fix the mobile version. If a bug persists and benefits the company, we should - by principle - never assume it to be a bug. We see the same right now with reddit, where old interfaces slowly (and clearly intentionally) crumble away, permanently signalling to the user that it is time to switch to one of the interfaces with a higher ad density.
- 4y ago

baby 4y ago

This and the newsfeed not being chronological, or the option to have it chronological being hidden from the user (that’s one of the most recurring question and feature request that internal employees ask, how crazy is that). IMO facebook could really change by creating a subscription and ensuring that people who subscribe are happy enough with the product to keep paying. I think that recenters the incentives towards building something for the user. Another meta problem is that there seem to be no authoritative product person that can force his/her vision on the product so you get hundreds of visions colliding and fighting for changes. IMO it’s much more valuable to have a coherent vision being enforced for the product, otherwise you get this frankenstein-like collection of apps. Finally, the fact that HN is such a hater of facebook means that most fb engineers have deserted HN and they’re not reading the excellent ideas and feedback that this community sometimes provide. It’s a shame, because I still completely believe in Facebook as a good product for the world.

Raed667 4y ago
The assumption is that chronological feed makes for less engagement, and if your business model is to sell eyeballs, that creates an intensive to hide it and make your KPIs better.
- baby 4y ago
  They’d get more money from me by making me pay for a subscription
sweettea 4y ago
There is a 'Most Recent' option for several years which provides chronological newsfeed: https://m.facebook.com/help/218728138156311/how-do-i-see-the-most-recent-posts-in-my-feed-on-facebook%3F/ https://m.facebook.com/help/218728138156311/how-do-i-see-the... . It isn't well known, for sure.
- Lammy 4y ago
  “You can sort your Feed to see recent posts, but Feed will eventually return to its default setting.”

liendolucas 4y ago

> I'll never forget the open contempt Meta has shown for me as a user of their products. You can always return the contempt by extracting all our data out (provided that's important to you) and permanently shutting down you account. I believe that's the most efficient thing you can do to tell FB to go to hell. Edit: I honestly believe that any FB user this is the most harmful thing you can do to them.

Raed667 4y ago
I'm hostage to Meta, my grandmother uses only Messenger to call and would/can not learn any other interface. The rest of the family only chat through Whatsapp. Quitting Meta means not getting to be in those circles anymore.
- liendolucas 4y ago
  Yes, many people suffer from this problem as well. I guess I can say what I said because I cancelled my account many many years ago (if not mistaken more than a decade ago).
- jamiek88 4y ago
  I quit fb but WhatsApp is impossible to quit. I tried and I became socially isolated.
  - Raed667 4y ago
    I can relate. But it seems Facebook becomes more necessary if your kid's football team only shares schedules in a group, or after-school clubs, etc.. Basically you're subject to the lowest common denominator.
  - matheusmoreira 4y ago
    WhatsApp is infinitely better than Facebook though. I've never received a notification I wasn't interested in. Also, it has end-to-end encryption.

anf0 4y ago

You used to be able to hide the red notification with uBlock Origin. I don’t know if it still works though.

jorvi 4y ago

Meta refuses to give me access to- or delete my Instagram account. A few years back I changed the e-mail to a fake e-mail. I accidentally typo’d my mobile phone number due to which it now resolves with a Philippines prefix. This prevents me from verifying their ‘looks like you’re trying to do a suspicious log-in’ They won’t give access or delete my account despite: - me knowing the current password - providing old passwords - indicating to them the old e-mail address to my account - verifying that I have access to that e-mail account - verifying that I own the ‘old’ phone number to the account with a phone bill (!) - indicating I am willing to provide a scanned ID - indicating two friend on my ‘following’ list that would be willing to verify its me trying to access the account At this point I have pretty much done 5-factor authentication and they still won’t accede. Thankfully I am an EU citizen and the data commissions are currently extremely trigger happy with GDPR fines, so my hope is this forced them to resolve it, or make it cost them tens to hundreds of millions for not doing so. Fuck you and your scummy illegal practices, Meta :)

Nextgrid 4y ago
> the data commissions are currently extremely trigger happy with GDPR fines, so my hope is this forced them to resolve it, or make it cost them tens to hundreds of millions for not doing so. Lol: https://ruben.verborgh.org/facebook/ https://ruben.verborgh.org/facebook/
- jorvi 4y ago
  > 2019

firecall 4y ago

I dont use Instagram, but occasionally I'll take a look to see if friends have posted anything. Then seemingly at random it starts showing me short-form sort-core porn videos. Instagram used to be about fun and creativity, now it's a trashy tabloid that's entirely made of Page 3 content.

corobo 4y ago
Is it actually random or is it after you've caught up? For instance mine will show friends stuff until this message, then it starts showing me the random trash. I'm guessing they're going for engagement (random content > already seen content) but it's always my cue to close the tab, quite handy https://img.imgy.org/12nq.jpg https://img.imgy.org/12nq.jpg

matheusmoreira 4y ago

> I'll never forget the open contempt Meta has shown for me as a user of their products. Yeah. They're an advertising company. They make money by spamming users with noise. Contempt for other human beings is in their DNA. They don't want you to disable the red dot. They want it there 24 hours a day bothering you until you give in and watch those ads disguised as videos just to get rid of it and find some peace. They'll actually run human experiments on their users without their informed consent just to find out the exact level of annoyance they'll tolerate without deleting their accounts in disgust. If you try to disable the red dot, they'll ban you. It's against their terms of service to not be bothered by notifications. You need to submit to this abuse if you want or need to use their services. You can still try anyway. Make a plugin to delete the dot. Then a few days later you'll find they scrambled the page structure on purpose just so you could no longer interface with it, precisely so you could not defeat their little nagging dot. "Contempt" doesn't quite do it justice. They delight in our suffering and profit off it.

civilized 4y ago
I would really enjoy a well-researched essay substantiating these points. I've heard bits and pieces consistent with this but when you put it so strongly it boggles the mind a bit. But it's also believable because it makes some sense of why social media is so hellish.
Clent 4y ago
Confidently incorrect. That isn't how any of this works.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]