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The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

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Re: The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

#301

Post by lostlogin »

Semaphor wrote: post #274
maxxxxx wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny story: A while ago I took an Ayurveda class (Indian medicine) and part of it was doing an oil enema. There are devices for this that are also used by a certain population for sexual pleasures. Bought one on Amazon and for months I couldn't show my Amazon page to other people because it was filled with sex toys....

My favorite sleeping mask is made by Joy Division, a blindfold sold as a sex toy. When I replace it every 1-2 years (or earlier in case I was on a flight…) my Amazon page is full of sex toys ;)

How do they get away with that brand name?

Re: The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

#302

Post by traek »

guelo wrote: post #64
ProblemFactory wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you have a page, Facebook wants to milk you, so they've got this weird algorithm that pushes your posts to only a small fraction of the page's followers, expecting you to start "promoting" them. While this does enable Facebook to force brands to buy advertising, it is also an user-friendly change. Nobody who I have spoken to about this thinks that "like/follow" = "I want to see everything they post" on Facebook.…

I know better than The Algorithm whether I want to see every post or not. But I'm not allowed to decide that because The Algorithm isn't there to serve me it's there to serve Facebook.

You can decide that whenever you want, just change your follow settings for the page to 'See First' from 'Following'.

Re: The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

#303

Post by wfunction »

nkrisc wrote: post #289
wfunction wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There was however one moment where Amazon got it right: they recommended to me a book that only a week earlier I had purchased on a whim from an independent bookstore with cash. Creepy good. That is creepy. Any way it might've been more than just a coincidence?

It's possible, but it was a book in a relatively unusual niche that I have a hobbyist interest in. It was a book about the archaeological and linguistic study of proto-Indo-European people (PIE) and their origins and spread by means of horses and the, at the time novel, wheels. I had previously purchased a book or two on linguistics from Amazon so perhaps there is only a small set of popular books in that category fo…

Ah, yeah, that would explain it. Thanks!

Re: The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

#304

Post by doppelganger27 »

dghughes wrote: post #229
kromem wrote: post #171

Facebook also has a serious problem in that its news feed is a content recommendation engine with only positive reinforcement but no negative reinforcement. So you end up with a ton of false positives even when actively interacting with the content, and their system doesn't even know how wrong it is. And should you really not like some content, the solution is unfriending the poster, rather than simply matching again…

That's like YouTube lord help you if you click on a video you don't like by mistake you'll never see the end of it in the recommended section. It's to the point now where I just log out so I can see what's available rather than a continuous feedback of what I already watched.

You can go to the "History" page on youtube and delete the video from your watch history. It seems to stop youtube from using it for recommendations.

Re: The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

#305

Post by saym »

chjohasbrouck wrote: post #263

Some proof or data to back up the article's claim would be great. I'm not really buying it. If moms auto-like every post, then how is that a relevant signal? Everyone has a mom. That would mean every post is getting penalized in the same way (which effectively means no posts are getting penalized). And if circumventing this was as simple as excluding his mom, wouldn't the effect be even greater if he excluded all non…

Have you ever had a post that ended up being liked by an odd subset of your Facebook friends? I certainly have had posts, that for some reason, only my high school friends end up liking.

I know this is only another anecdote and real data would be preferable. But I'm convinced that the described behavior absolutely happens.

Re: The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

#306

Post by cestith »

TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #295
barking wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One per house, like everyone else!

Plebeian. One per floor per house, of course. You don't want to have to carry them up and down stairs .

Nouveau riche.

All houses should have one floor. Why use stairs or elevators when you can just buy more land?

Re: The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

#307

Post by cestith »

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #103
ryanbrunner wrote: post #95

I find a lot of sites feel like they're overtuning their recommendation engines, to the detriment of using the site. YouTube is particularly bad for this - given the years of history and somewhat regular viewing of the site, I feel like it should have a relatively good idea of what I'm interested in. Instead, the YouTube homepage seems myopically focused on the last 5-10 videos I watched.

Youtube is definitely over-weighing the last few videos. Then again, it's likely optimized for a different market segment. Especially with how many children are given tablets. Like, brief intense fascination with many subjects in general is genuinely hard to optimize for, especially when a huge portion of your market has long-lasting intense fascination with a few subjects.

As largely a geeky population, perhaps we do need to accept that our interests are more varied and often actually more intense than those of the average person. Being mildly amused by every fart joke movie available for some people is more rewarding than watching an emotionally challenging drama, a thoughtful comedy, and eight documentaries about four topics.

Re: The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

#308

Post by tomc1985 »

fritzw wrote: post #175
crowbahr wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix, I think, has killed their own recommendation algorithm when they removed stars and made it boolean. I don't know if those buttons even do anything anymore because I think they're just matching based off demographic and who they're trying to market to now. It's recommending shows that I never would watch in a million years and giving them high matches despite me disliking most similar shows just because I'm a…

I think Netflix probably did it because people are inherently bad at being objective. For the average person, 2 stars for a movie and 4 for another isn't based on anything measurable, even they couldn't explain. I'm shocked at some of the amazon product reviews, most of which are 5 star reviews even if the product is absolutely terrible. Movies are different than products, but it's the same people doing the reviewing…

Couldn't you control for that by weighting people's ratings by the range in which they provide them? Like weighting a 5-star review a bit more from someone who averages 3's than someone whose ratings average 4's? Far from perfect sure but I bet it could save a lot of results from needing to be thrown out.

Re: The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

#309

Post by quadrangle »

icebraining wrote: post #207
quadrangle wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they aren't trying to help you enjoy videos over the long-term, they're trying to keep you from going over to Facebook where their addictive algorithm will take over and reduce your likelihood of returning to YouTube! It's a classic race-to-the-bottom. If YouTube lets Facebook keep you addicted, you won't get to the long-term. http://timewellspent.io/ is good for perspective

Yes, but that has an unspoken assumption that recent habits are more additive than longer term ones. I find that suspect; after all, you've already shown that you'll go back again and again to these kinds of videos, whereas you might spend a couple of hours watching a bunch of videos of a kind that you'll never be interested in again. Personally, I find YouTube terrible at keeping me engaged. Even when I want to keep…

You could be exceptional or the algorithms might just be shitty at their intended purpose. Lots of possibilities.

Re: The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

#310

Post by coolsdude2282 »

phs318u wrote: post #268
cameldrv wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is the economics of the Internet today. Most sites are ad-funded. They need to maximize pageviews and time on site. The recommender is a huge part of accomplishing that, and it simply won't be tuned to any metric other than maximizing revenue. The solution would be to reskin popular sites with recommenders that had other objectives, such as retrospective satisfaction with time spent. Unfortunately sites k…

Thought just occurred: would I be willing to pay a subscription to have the recommender tuned to remove revenue maximisation and site-addiction maximisation? Would anyone? I've made plenty of "remove ads" in-app purchases on my phone. This isn't too different. And it might actually result in a truly useful experience.

I've said the same thing many many times, I can't remember the numbers but the monetization of facebook data per person (If I remember correctly from something I read a year back, I'll try to look and add it to this comment) is less than 20$!

I would be very very willing to pay for Facebook to simply not be tracked, especially at such a reasonable price. I know that won't happen, but I'd really love such a thing.

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