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I’ve developed this tic where anytime I’m on Facebook I aggressively block all the non sponsored suggested content in my timeline. I’ve blocked literally thousa

by wincy 2y ago

I’ve developed this tic where anytime I’m on Facebook I aggressively block all the non sponsored suggested content in my timeline. I’ve blocked literally thousands of pages at this point. So the recommendations have gotten really weird, last week it thought maybe I was gay, then I started recommending Chinese state sponsored pages, now it’s recommending all 50 National Geographic pages. It’s always pages over a million “likes” whatever that means. I'm curious what’ll happen if I manage to block all of them. Honestly probably something lame where the recommendations just get weirder and weirder (which I guess is happening now)

koutetsu 2y ago
What a coincidence! I have done the exact same thing but on Instagram instead of Facebook and have had similar results to yours. Since both belong to Meta, we can safely assume that they use the same or very similar backends to serve ads. I think it would be interesting to do a large scale experiment to see what can happen.
- bluGill 2y ago
  I've been doing this for a couple years. My feed is better, but they still have plenty of garbage I'm not interested in. I make it a point to scroll until I have blocked two of these - that is my signal that it is time to read. Hopefully if more of us start that rule of two eventually it will be populate enough that they notice and add a mode for those like to better see our friends thus keeping us a little longer (I doubt it, but it would be nice).
Symbiote 2y ago
Do you get fewer junk posts in the feed, or are they just different?
- wincy 2y ago
  They're just different, it seems. Seems like sometimes it shows my friends posts with 2 or 3 things in between, but now it's started recommending sports, it's like it switches topics every few days, sports, then maybe I'm gay, then maybe I'm African, it's just all over the place. Note I don't do this with sponsored, only with the junk that I didn't voluntarily follow in my feed. The stuff is definitely getting weirder and less promoted, like random pages about container houses and there's like apparently 50 of them, all with bad AI art, and tons of cooking stuff. I know people like to hate on X but the feed on there is hugely more interesting, topical, and relevant to my interests compared to what's getting interjected into my Facebook feed.
parpfish 2y ago
i have a burner fb account that i use to follow a local lost-pets group and check hours for restaurants that refuse to have normal webpages. this account has no friends and just the one group membership so my feed if 100% platform-promoted swill. and it is bad. the current fad is for there to be accounts that repost screenshots of successfull AITA reddit posts to engagement farm. the sad part is that it works. they get a ton of comments and likes

by wincy 2y ago

koutetsu 2y ago

What a coincidence! I have done the exact same thing but on Instagram instead of Facebook and have had similar results to yours. Since both belong to Meta, we can safely assume that they use the same or very similar backends to serve ads. I think it would be interesting to do a large scale experiment to see what can happen.

bluGill 2y ago
I've been doing this for a couple years. My feed is better, but they still have plenty of garbage I'm not interested in. I make it a point to scroll until I have blocked two of these - that is my signal that it is time to read. Hopefully if more of us start that rule of two eventually it will be populate enough that they notice and add a mode for those like to better see our friends thus keeping us a little longer (I doubt it, but it would be nice).

Symbiote 2y ago

Do you get fewer junk posts in the feed, or are they just different?

wincy 2y ago
They're just different, it seems. Seems like sometimes it shows my friends posts with 2 or 3 things in between, but now it's started recommending sports, it's like it switches topics every few days, sports, then maybe I'm gay, then maybe I'm African, it's just all over the place. Note I don't do this with sponsored, only with the junk that I didn't voluntarily follow in my feed. The stuff is definitely getting weirder and less promoted, like random pages about container houses and there's like apparently 50 of them, all with bad AI art, and tons of cooking stuff. I know people like to hate on X but the feed on there is hugely more interesting, topical, and relevant to my interests compared to what's getting interjected into my Facebook feed.

parpfish 2y ago

i have a burner fb account that i use to follow a local lost-pets group and check hours for restaurants that refuse to have normal webpages. this account has no friends and just the one group membership so my feed if 100% platform-promoted swill. and it is bad. the current fad is for there to be accounts that repost screenshots of successfull AITA reddit posts to engagement farm. the sad part is that it works. they get a ton of comments and likes