5 ms·

My Facebook is completely useless due to all the suggested posts that appear in my feed. They're all memes that are of no interest to me and they cover up any p

My Facebook is completely useless due to all the suggested posts that appear in my feed. They're all memes that are of no interest to me and they cover up any posts from the few friends that still use Facebook. Not being active on social media has meant a lot of old friends have drifted out of my life so I'm trying to force myself to be more active on it but sadly there are no enjoyable (or usable) platforms left.

mikenew 3y ago
Social media has effectively split in two directions, and the ends of the spectrum are Discord and TikTok. TikTok is almost purely algorithmic, stranger-generated content consumption with the novelty factor cranked to 11. Discord has no algorithmic curation, voting, etc, and is just people talking that you have to curate yourself. Facebook is trying to pivot in the TikTok direction. Problem is there are a lot of people who want to use it to connect with actual people (because that's kinda how it worked in the past), which is orthogonal to their mission of pumping the maximal possible amount of garbage into your brain.
- jliptzin 3y ago
  I love discord. It is the only social media I regularly use. There seems to be a sentiment that pops up every now and again that it’s a shame that content in discord communities is getting “walled off” and inaccessible by google and others from the rest of the internet. That is a strange sentiment to me. Discord communities are private by design. If the server owners want public discourse, there are many options for that. Are these same people upset that there aren’t microphones at every table in restaurants so that those conversations aren’t “walled off” from anyone not in the restaurant? In fact I think scraping website content by third parties for their own indexing should be opt-in, not opt-out, it’s pretty obnoxious in my opinion that you can put up a website intended only for friends and family but then large entities all over the world crawl your content and broadcast it on their own platforms without your consent.
  - spencerflem 3y ago
    I think most people complaining about that are talking about support discords for software projects - where the default used to be that you contributions were permanent and searchable. Walling it off makes it less useful. I use discord mostly for keeping up with friends and am very glad those chats aren't on the open internet
  - jowea 3y ago
    > Discord communities are private by design. Are they? I'm sure there are people who use Discord like that, but I am on dozens of servers and all of them are public, i.e. anyone can join anytime. That's not private that's just hiding from Google. > If the server owners want public discourse, there are many options for that. Chat/video/audio as good and popular as Discord? Where? IRC? Matrix? > Are these same people upset that there aren’t microphones at every table in restaurants so that those conversations aren’t “walled off” from anyone not in the restaurant? Fair enough but nobody is asking direct messages or the servers for people who actually know each other and want privacy to be on the open web. Just the ones that are closer to being public squares for discussing specific topics. > In fact I think scraping website content by third parties for their own indexing should be opt-in, not opt-out, it’s pretty obnoxious in my opinion that you can put up a website intended only for friends and family but then large entities all over the world crawl your content and broadcast it on their own platforms without your consent. Eh, I get what you're saying but don't you think the Internet as a whole loses a lot of its value if this happens? Wasn't Google and good indexing one of the crucial things that led to the Internet revolution?
    - jliptzin 3y ago
      I’m sure the vast majority of sites would still opt-in to the indexing, considering the lengths people go to with SEO crap to get to the front page of google.
    - userinanother 3y ago
      The good ones are actually private and you need to pay to play
- grishka 3y ago
  Discord isn't social media, it's an instant messaging app and a terrible one at that. A messaging app can't fully replace early-Facebook-like social network, because it just works so much differently and is optimized for different use cases. There's strangely nothing at all to fill this particular niche, although I'm working on one fediverse project that tries.
  - mym1990 3y ago
    I find it hard to believe that there are no products out there trying to fill the 'early-Facebook-like social network' niche. People are discovering that a true social network, between actual people in the physical world, is not a scalable thing...and it should not be. On top of that, these same products trying to create social networks eventually run into a monetization problem.
herbst 3y ago
That's Instagram for me. There is one or two posts of people I know. Then the bold and always wrong claim that I now have seen all new posts followed by stupid meme & travel content I have zero interest or engagement with.
Ajedi32 3y ago
Try https://www.facebook.com/?filter=friends https://www.facebook.com/?filter=friends Annoying that that's not the default, sure. But at least it exists.
- Sylamore 3y ago
  Make that https://www.facebook.com/?filter=friends&sk=h_chr https://www.facebook.com/?filter=friends&sk=h_chr and you'll get your friends feed in chronological order too.
  - Digit-Al 3y ago
    You can get to the same thing by choosing "Feeds" in the menu and then selecting "Friends". That one works in the app as well.
    - Sylamore 3y ago
      I randomly have the whole Feeds menu option disappear entirely, "see more" doesn't reveal it when that happens either, so I just book marked the different versions of it I found useful to use directly.
- midasuni 3y ago
  Pages I have no idea about with “follow” or “groups you’ll like” still outnumber friends posts 2:1
  - Ajedi32 3y ago
    Sorry, it's actually https://www.facebook.com/?filter=friends&sk=h_chr https://www.facebook.com/?filter=friends&sk=h_chr I thought sk=h_chr was unimportant so I trimmed it off the URL before sharing. Turns out it's necessary.
    - midasuni 3y ago
      5 suggested groups and 3 sponsored in the first 10 stories. Facebook is a ghost town. There’s just three people of the 125 “friends” who appears in the first 20 odd.
bmm6o 3y ago
Mine was like that too. I started using the "I don't want to see this" flag pretty aggressively, and outright blocked a lot of accounts I had no interest in. It has worked pretty well - aside from some ads, my feed is from people I follow. I thought they weren't posting, but it turns out the algorithm was prioritizing NBA memes and other crap.
- jltsiren 3y ago
  I did that for a year or two, but it didn't work. Facebook always found new kinds of garbage to recommend. If anything, FB started showing more algorithmic content and fewer posts from my friends. I eventually stopped posting on Facebook, because it had become a wasteland almost devoid of people.

mikenew 3y ago

Social media has effectively split in two directions, and the ends of the spectrum are Discord and TikTok. TikTok is almost purely algorithmic, stranger-generated content consumption with the novelty factor cranked to 11. Discord has no algorithmic curation, voting, etc, and is just people talking that you have to curate yourself. Facebook is trying to pivot in the TikTok direction. Problem is there are a lot of people who want to use it to connect with actual people (because that's kinda how it worked in the past), which is orthogonal to their mission of pumping the maximal possible amount of garbage into your brain.

jliptzin 3y ago
I love discord. It is the only social media I regularly use. There seems to be a sentiment that pops up every now and again that it’s a shame that content in discord communities is getting “walled off” and inaccessible by google and others from the rest of the internet. That is a strange sentiment to me. Discord communities are private by design. If the server owners want public discourse, there are many options for that. Are these same people upset that there aren’t microphones at every table in restaurants so that those conversations aren’t “walled off” from anyone not in the restaurant? In fact I think scraping website content by third parties for their own indexing should be opt-in, not opt-out, it’s pretty obnoxious in my opinion that you can put up a website intended only for friends and family but then large entities all over the world crawl your content and broadcast it on their own platforms without your consent.
- spencerflem 3y ago
  I think most people complaining about that are talking about support discords for software projects - where the default used to be that you contributions were permanent and searchable. Walling it off makes it less useful. I use discord mostly for keeping up with friends and am very glad those chats aren't on the open internet
- jowea 3y ago
  > Discord communities are private by design. Are they? I'm sure there are people who use Discord like that, but I am on dozens of servers and all of them are public, i.e. anyone can join anytime. That's not private that's just hiding from Google. > If the server owners want public discourse, there are many options for that. Chat/video/audio as good and popular as Discord? Where? IRC? Matrix? > Are these same people upset that there aren’t microphones at every table in restaurants so that those conversations aren’t “walled off” from anyone not in the restaurant? Fair enough but nobody is asking direct messages or the servers for people who actually know each other and want privacy to be on the open web. Just the ones that are closer to being public squares for discussing specific topics. > In fact I think scraping website content by third parties for their own indexing should be opt-in, not opt-out, it’s pretty obnoxious in my opinion that you can put up a website intended only for friends and family but then large entities all over the world crawl your content and broadcast it on their own platforms without your consent. Eh, I get what you're saying but don't you think the Internet as a whole loses a lot of its value if this happens? Wasn't Google and good indexing one of the crucial things that led to the Internet revolution?
  - jliptzin 3y ago
    I’m sure the vast majority of sites would still opt-in to the indexing, considering the lengths people go to with SEO crap to get to the front page of google.
  - userinanother 3y ago
    The good ones are actually private and you need to pay to play
grishka 3y ago
Discord isn't social media, it's an instant messaging app and a terrible one at that. A messaging app can't fully replace early-Facebook-like social network, because it just works so much differently and is optimized for different use cases. There's strangely nothing at all to fill this particular niche, although I'm working on one fediverse project that tries.
- mym1990 3y ago
  I find it hard to believe that there are no products out there trying to fill the 'early-Facebook-like social network' niche. People are discovering that a true social network, between actual people in the physical world, is not a scalable thing...and it should not be. On top of that, these same products trying to create social networks eventually run into a monetization problem.

herbst 3y ago

That's Instagram for me. There is one or two posts of people I know. Then the bold and always wrong claim that I now have seen all new posts followed by stupid meme & travel content I have zero interest or engagement with.

Ajedi32 3y ago

Try https://www.facebook.com/?filter=friends https://www.facebook.com/?filter=friends Annoying that that's not the default, sure. But at least it exists.

Sylamore 3y ago
Make that https://www.facebook.com/?filter=friends&sk=h_chr https://www.facebook.com/?filter=friends&sk=h_chr and you'll get your friends feed in chronological order too.
- Digit-Al 3y ago
  You can get to the same thing by choosing "Feeds" in the menu and then selecting "Friends". That one works in the app as well.
  - Sylamore 3y ago
    I randomly have the whole Feeds menu option disappear entirely, "see more" doesn't reveal it when that happens either, so I just book marked the different versions of it I found useful to use directly.
midasuni 3y ago
Pages I have no idea about with “follow” or “groups you’ll like” still outnumber friends posts 2:1
- Ajedi32 3y ago
  Sorry, it's actually https://www.facebook.com/?filter=friends&sk=h_chr https://www.facebook.com/?filter=friends&sk=h_chr I thought sk=h_chr was unimportant so I trimmed it off the URL before sharing. Turns out it's necessary.
  - midasuni 3y ago
    5 suggested groups and 3 sponsored in the first 10 stories. Facebook is a ghost town. There’s just three people of the 125 “friends” who appears in the first 20 odd.

bmm6o 3y ago

Mine was like that too. I started using the "I don't want to see this" flag pretty aggressively, and outright blocked a lot of accounts I had no interest in. It has worked pretty well - aside from some ads, my feed is from people I follow. I thought they weren't posting, but it turns out the algorithm was prioritizing NBA memes and other crap.

jltsiren 3y ago
I did that for a year or two, but it didn't work. Facebook always found new kinds of garbage to recommend. If anything, FB started showing more algorithmic content and fewer posts from my friends. I eventually stopped posting on Facebook, because it had become a wasteland almost devoid of people.