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So if you like everything on Facebook, the result is political extremism and the most insipid pop culture trash. What frightens me is what if this has nothing t

So if you like everything on Facebook, the result is political extremism and the most insipid pop culture trash. What frightens me is what if this has nothing to do with Facebook, but is instead about human nature? Does this also describe what happens to a person's life when they stop caring, when they are no longer motivated to put forth the effort to be discerning, when they give up trying to make anything but the easiest and most immediate choices?

carterehsmith 12y ago
In this case, it does have to do with Facebook. To quote the article: " By the end of day one, I noticed that on mobile, my feed was almost completely devoid of human content. I was only presented with the chance to like stories from various websites, and various other ads. Yet on the desktop—while it’s still mostly branded content—I continue to see things from my friends. On that little bitty screen, where real-estate is so valuable, Facebook’s robots decided that the way to keep my attention is by hiding the people and only showing me the stuff that other machines have pumped out. Weird. "
cbovis 12y ago
The comments people put on those kind of posts scare me more than the posts themselves! I think you can tell a lot about what's wrong with our society and the root of a lot of our problems from internet comments..
pavel_lishin 12y ago
I don't think it's telling us what most people would rather hear - I think it's more likely that it shows us exactly who is trying to yell loudest.
- protonfish 12y ago
  But working backward, if we see somebody who is into political extremism, it could hint at the behavior that lead them there. What if the members of radical hate groups are not aggressive idealists, but people whose spirits have been crushed, have low self-confidence, or are afraid to go against those that yell the loudest. Actually, that does not sound surprising at all.
- fragsworth 12y ago
  The kind of person who clicks "Like" on these stupid things is kind of like the person who buys the Enquirer magazine from a supermarket tabloid shelf. They're going to click "Like" on a bunch of other stupid things, and visit the stupid links. Facebook has the advantage over a supermarket that they can sell you extreme political material without pissing off their other customers. What you end up with is probably what supermarket tabloid shelves would look like if people only saw what was tailored to them.
  - pavel_lishin 12y ago
    OBAMA AND BATBOY IN CAHOOTS TO SELL KIM KARDASHIAN TO ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS!
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
jerf 12y ago
"So if you like everything on Facebook, the result is political extremism and the most insipid pop culture trash." Bear in mind that "extremism" is the expected result of any reasonable algorithm that you abuse like this. If you like X, the algorithm will focus around X. If you like everything the algorithm suggests, you'll end up liking a "bigger target", and it will start suggesting stuff yet further away from your original starting point, until eventually you've "liked" everything. This is deliberately engineering a scenario in which Facebook will feed one a set of things that all seem "extreme" on some metric or other, be it "political", "pop culture insipid", or anything else, because they are all "extremely" far away from your starting point. You are also engineering a scenario in which you are receiving "everything", so you will end up experiencing this proportional to raw volume within the segments of the interest graph that you've transitively explored. We can't eliminate the possibility that he's missing large chunks of the graph in his transitive exploration. A massive anime fan or somebody else big into niches and staying away from politics who starts doing this may end up with a very different experience. (In fact I'd suspect that it's decent odds that why the author ended up with "extreme politics" in the first place is that he probably had a pre-existing politics seed set of likes, which then "fuzzed" into the full set of political views while not getting into niches like anime or figurine collection.) As a story it's interesting, but I'm not sure it reveals stuff about society so much as it reveals a very fuzzy picture of the author.
- gutnor 12y ago
  What's rather surprising though, is the speed of it. Sure if you like everything right you will eventually hit the limit. However, it happened in 1 day ! Facebook is supposed to be this big brother that knows everything you like, knows your whole circle of friend and acquaintance even maybe your inner thoughts. But in reality, it will forget everything if you have one day out of the ordinary. Very quickly, the monetization model that Facebook uses is basically taking over the social aspect of the website. If you like it, chances are Twitter or even Reddit will give you a much better experience. That's a bit like if Google decided that you like ads so much you only want to see that and not the search result anymore. That's certainly something that Facebook investors should look at.
- protonfish 12y ago
fit2rule 12y ago
>What frightens me is what if this has nothing to do with Facebook, but is instead about human nature? Maybe its more likely that its a reflection of those who have the power and influence to game the Facebook algorithm; i.e. those who are most heavily invested in the need/right to influence social perception. The right-wing are currently invested in this business with much to lose. Why is it such a surprise?

carterehsmith 12y ago

In this case, it does have to do with Facebook. To quote the article: " By the end of day one, I noticed that on mobile, my feed was almost completely devoid of human content. I was only presented with the chance to like stories from various websites, and various other ads. Yet on the desktop—while it’s still mostly branded content—I continue to see things from my friends. On that little bitty screen, where real-estate is so valuable, Facebook’s robots decided that the way to keep my attention is by hiding the people and only showing me the stuff that other machines have pumped out. Weird. "

cbovis 12y ago

The comments people put on those kind of posts scare me more than the posts themselves! I think you can tell a lot about what's wrong with our society and the root of a lot of our problems from internet comments..

pavel_lishin 12y ago

I don't think it's telling us what most people would rather hear - I think it's more likely that it shows us exactly who is trying to yell loudest.

protonfish 12y ago
But working backward, if we see somebody who is into political extremism, it could hint at the behavior that lead them there. What if the members of radical hate groups are not aggressive idealists, but people whose spirits have been crushed, have low self-confidence, or are afraid to go against those that yell the loudest. Actually, that does not sound surprising at all.
fragsworth 12y ago
The kind of person who clicks "Like" on these stupid things is kind of like the person who buys the Enquirer magazine from a supermarket tabloid shelf. They're going to click "Like" on a bunch of other stupid things, and visit the stupid links. Facebook has the advantage over a supermarket that they can sell you extreme political material without pissing off their other customers. What you end up with is probably what supermarket tabloid shelves would look like if people only saw what was tailored to them.
- pavel_lishin 12y ago
  OBAMA AND BATBOY IN CAHOOTS TO SELL KIM KARDASHIAN TO ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS!
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]

jerf 12y ago

"So if you like everything on Facebook, the result is political extremism and the most insipid pop culture trash." Bear in mind that "extremism" is the expected result of any reasonable algorithm that you abuse like this. If you like X, the algorithm will focus around X. If you like everything the algorithm suggests, you'll end up liking a "bigger target", and it will start suggesting stuff yet further away from your original starting point, until eventually you've "liked" everything. This is deliberately engineering a scenario in which Facebook will feed one a set of things that all seem "extreme" on some metric or other, be it "political", "pop culture insipid", or anything else, because they are all "extremely" far away from your starting point. You are also engineering a scenario in which you are receiving "everything", so you will end up experiencing this proportional to raw volume within the segments of the interest graph that you've transitively explored. We can't eliminate the possibility that he's missing large chunks of the graph in his transitive exploration. A massive anime fan or somebody else big into niches and staying away from politics who starts doing this may end up with a very different experience. (In fact I'd suspect that it's decent odds that why the author ended up with "extreme politics" in the first place is that he probably had a pre-existing politics seed set of likes, which then "fuzzed" into the full set of political views while not getting into niches like anime or figurine collection.) As a story it's interesting, but I'm not sure it reveals stuff about society so much as it reveals a very fuzzy picture of the author.

gutnor 12y ago
What's rather surprising though, is the speed of it. Sure if you like everything right you will eventually hit the limit. However, it happened in 1 day ! Facebook is supposed to be this big brother that knows everything you like, knows your whole circle of friend and acquaintance even maybe your inner thoughts. But in reality, it will forget everything if you have one day out of the ordinary. Very quickly, the monetization model that Facebook uses is basically taking over the social aspect of the website. If you like it, chances are Twitter or even Reddit will give you a much better experience. That's a bit like if Google decided that you like ads so much you only want to see that and not the search result anymore. That's certainly something that Facebook investors should look at.
protonfish 12y ago

fit2rule 12y ago

>What frightens me is what if this has nothing to do with Facebook, but is instead about human nature? Maybe its more likely that its a reflection of those who have the power and influence to game the Facebook algorithm; i.e. those who are most heavily invested in the need/right to influence social perception. The right-wing are currently invested in this business with much to lose. Why is it such a surprise?