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Were you measuring what users like, or what they "engage" with? If I see a post on mastodon, it's from someone I follow or a post that someone I follow thought
by calamari4065 3y ago
Were you measuring what users like, or what they "engage" with?
If I see a post on mastodon, it's from someone I follow or a post that someone I follow thought was worth sharing. That's a genuine interaction between humans. I get to decide what's in my feed based on who I follow and the filters I set up. The system is designed only to connect me with people I choose to follow.
Meanwhile, an algorithmic feed with no options is designed for one thing: manipulating users to optimize "engagement". That by definition requires ignoring what users prefer. I really shouldn't have to explain that this is a bad thing.
- mgraczyk 3y agoWe ran lots of experiments, including asking people survey questions, monitoring usage, asking people offline to try both, etc You're wrong about the design of algorithmic feeds. I worked on them, that's not how we designed them.
- zarzavat 3y agoHow about giving the people the option and letting them decide for themselves. Also, 20% of people is hundreds of millions of people.
- mgraczyk 3y agoPeople have the option, you can choose to use a chronological feed on Facebook and Meta
- preciousoo 3y agoFacebook engr is famous for popularizing the phrase “one in a million happens every millisecond” so this 20% hand wringing is funny to me