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Facebook’s algorithm isn’t surfacing one-third of Chicago Tribune’s posts

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Re: Facebook’s algorithm isn’t surfacing one-third of Chicago Tribune’s posts

#81

Post by ballenf »

mikeash wrote: post #68
marricks wrote: post #43

When I had Facebook I was passionate about several topics, but I limited my posting to only 1 - 2 times a month. Initially when I started I got some engagement, questions, etc. As the years wore on I gained some friends who cared about those topics too, who liked my posts, shared, etc. Dozens of likes at times. Well, turns out people paid less attention over time, or seemed too. Those posts got fewer likes and shares…

Why is it so terrible that they control the order of the feed? If the feed was just sorted by date then it would be unusable for most people. I feel like a lot of objections to how Facebook does things come down to thinking Facebook is something different from what it is. It is not, nor is it intended to be, something that shows you every single post from every single friend.

Another way to put it -- it's not so much that ordering by something other than date is an issue, it's that ordering by date is (one of) the only neutral ways to sort. Anything else introduces a bias to some degree. Popularity of posts may be another way, although this gives older posts undue weight.

Sorting by an opaque algorithm gives FB the power to control the conversation.

Re: Facebook’s algorithm isn’t surfacing one-third of Chicago Tribune’s posts

#82

Post by marricks »

ncr100 wrote: post #77
marricks wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried to spell out why, but here you go, my personal experience is this out of order sorting meant that if I tried to post anything besides vapid updates few people saw them. If Facebook wanted to go from chronological to some other transparent metric, like hotness, I'd be more okay then whatever this is. The fact this is on the feed, my profile, and heck, even searching for events last I saw, is disturbing. Also,…

Hypothetical solution: Wrap your serious posts in vapid trimmings.

That could be fun...

> "Look at this cute cat pic, the time for the proletariat to rise is nigh, so cute!"

Re: Facebook’s algorithm isn’t surfacing one-third of Chicago Tribune’s posts

#83

Post by sigmar »

marricks wrote: post #43

When I had Facebook I was passionate about several topics, but I limited my posting to only 1 - 2 times a month. Initially when I started I got some engagement, questions, etc. As the years wore on I gained some friends who cared about those topics too, who liked my posts, shared, etc. Dozens of likes at times. Well, turns out people paid less attention over time, or seemed too. Those posts got fewer likes and shares…

>only 1 - 2 times a month

I have suspected that facebook punishes your visibility if you don't post frequently (like a few times a day). Have you tried posting much more often than two times a month? Try two a day and see if your average engagement increases.

Re: Facebook’s algorithm isn’t surfacing one-third of Chicago Tribune’s posts

#84

Post by marricks »

basch wrote: post #74
marricks wrote: post #43

When I had Facebook I was passionate about several topics, but I limited my posting to only 1 - 2 times a month. Initially when I started I got some engagement, questions, etc. As the years wore on I gained some friends who cared about those topics too, who liked my posts, shared, etc. Dozens of likes at times. Well, turns out people paid less attention over time, or seemed too. Those posts got fewer likes and shares…

>"hurt user engagement" if Facebook is personalizing everyones feed based on what they click, isnt the clicker to blame for the result of personalization, not the technology provider. it sounds like your friends didnt engage with your posts, they did engage with other posts, and the facebook feedback loop built them a filter bubble of things they liked more than your posts.

If their algorithm causes such a positive feedback loop that only the most vapid of our content is seen I argue that is still Facebook's problem.

People already complain young people are superficial and self interested, algorithms feeding into/fueling that narrative sure doesn't help.

Re: Facebook’s algorithm isn’t surfacing one-third of Chicago Tribune’s posts

#85

Post by toddmorey »

Facebook's model of popularity and personal relevance to the top will never be the right platform for news. It alarms me that it's the #1 news source for like 70% of adults in the US.

More alarming is how this trend is matched with the move away from hard news towards 'pundit celebrity' commentary by almost all networks.

I think there's something in the human psyche where the best feelings come from confirmation of your own biases. This hack wasn't useful when only a few network news programs had to appeal to mass audiences, but it's provided really useful as media has splintered and become personalized.

I have this weird personal exercise where I pull up 5 different news tabs all at once. It's AMAZING how different the world looks from different websites, all coving the same events from drastically different perspectives. There has always been slant, but it's become 10x worse in the last decade.

Re: Facebook’s algorithm isn’t surfacing one-third of Chicago Tribune’s posts

#86

Post by johnchristopher »

basch wrote: post #74
marricks wrote: post #43

When I had Facebook I was passionate about several topics, but I limited my posting to only 1 - 2 times a month. Initially when I started I got some engagement, questions, etc. As the years wore on I gained some friends who cared about those topics too, who liked my posts, shared, etc. Dozens of likes at times. Well, turns out people paid less attention over time, or seemed too. Those posts got fewer likes and shares…

>"hurt user engagement" if Facebook is personalizing everyones feed based on what they click, isnt the clicker to blame for the result of personalization, not the technology provider. it sounds like your friends didnt engage with your posts, they did engage with other posts, and the facebook feedback loop built them a filter bubble of things they liked more than your posts.

No. Which people and pages's posts I get to see because I follow them is up to me no matter how many times I click on their content. I am old enough to unsubscribe or ignore them by myself.

Facebook filter should be an opt-in.

Re: Facebook’s algorithm isn’t surfacing one-third of Chicago Tribune’s posts

#87

Post by cbr »

rtkwe wrote: post #71
cbr wrote: post #30

It sounds like FB is taking the posts that are getting low engagement and cutting them off quicker. This makes a lot of sense!

Hopefully they're taking into account the actual active times of the fans of a page. If your fans are fairly local, which would map a lot of sense for a newspaper, a page could have huge swings in engagement throughout the day on the same content.

If they're smart they have a model of how they expect a post to behave given who they've shown it to, and show posts more/less widely based on whether it's over/underperforming their prediction.

Re: Facebook’s algorithm isn’t surfacing one-third of Chicago Tribune’s posts

#88

Post by gdulli »

callinyouin wrote: post #54

This is just a thought, but perhaps this is due to an internal effort at FB to filter out "fake news". The changes in their algorithm might be showing some unintended consequences, or maybe the stories from the Tribune that are getting killed really are of dubious quality (I'm not a reader, so I really don't know). The timing of the Tribune's downward trend in post reach would seem to fit this narrative at any rate.

Fake news is about determining bad sources, not individual articles. It's about finding propaganda sites that are intentionally and maliciously inventing false stories. A fake news algorithm wouldn't apply to a credible, established newspaper.

Re: Facebook’s algorithm isn’t surfacing one-third of Chicago Tribune’s posts

#89

Post by [deleted] »

marricks wrote: post #43

When I had Facebook I was passionate about several topics, but I limited my posting to only 1 - 2 times a month. Initially when I started I got some engagement, questions, etc. As the years wore on I gained some friends who cared about those topics too, who liked my posts, shared, etc. Dozens of likes at times. Well, turns out people paid less attention over time, or seemed too. Those posts got fewer likes and shares…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook’s algorithm isn’t surfacing one-third of Chicago Tribune’s posts

#90

Post by revicon »

marricks wrote: post #43

When I had Facebook I was passionate about several topics, but I limited my posting to only 1 - 2 times a month. Initially when I started I got some engagement, questions, etc. As the years wore on I gained some friends who cared about those topics too, who liked my posts, shared, etc. Dozens of likes at times. Well, turns out people paid less attention over time, or seemed too. Those posts got fewer likes and shares…

For me, I'm only interested in postings about "stupid life updates" as you call them when I'm on Facebook. I got so sick of the "10 ways batman is better than superman" articles that I started blocking every external site I saw being posted on my feed. And I mean everything, wsj, nyt, USA Today, etc etc etc.

Facebook is not a newsreader, it's a place where I go to see "stupid life events" from my friends and family that I don't get to see very much. There are a million other places I can go to read the news, I'm glad Facebook is nuking priority on external article posts, I wish they would do it more.

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