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Facebook's Adam Mosseri on Why You'll See Less Video, More from Friends

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Re: Facebook's Adam Mosseri on Why You'll See Less Video, More from Friends

#31

Post by balls187 »

CPLX wrote: post #5

Why don't they just give us the ability to customize what we want to run on our feed? Like we could choose chronological, controversial, event based, whatever, I'm sure they could be creative, some could be algorithms. They could keep the default they have now which most people wouldn't change. Then they could inject ads by whatever means they want and we could check them out or click on them or ignore them as we see…

> Why don't they just give us the ability to customize what we want to run on our feed?

It's not our feed. It's Facebook's. It's designed to show you content based on your input, but not exclusively based on that input.

Re: Facebook's Adam Mosseri on Why You'll See Less Video, More from Friends

#32

Post by skshogun »

fogzen wrote: post #26
skshogun wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can still switch between algorithmic and chronological order on Twitter. At least on their mobile website

Are you sure? I have “show best tweets first” turned off and my tweets are not in chronological order after signing in to check right now.

From time to time, it shows 5 random older tweets on top. But everything else is in chronological order.

Re: Facebook's Adam Mosseri on Why You'll See Less Video, More from Friends

#33

Post by hkmurakami »

save_ferris wrote: post #22
carlesfe wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree. I'll add my $0.02 because I know FB engineers read HN, and also to provide material to n-gate :) Everybody uses FB differently. Some people use it to share and read news. Others as an "aggregator" for different services (Insta, Twitter...). Others for groups. Or chats. Or to connect with businesses. I use it exclusively to share posts and pics with friends. However, after years and years of using the "hide all…

> But it lets me connect with people that I have no other way of communicating with. This is such an unfortunate and all-too-common mindset in our world. Of course there are other ways to connect with people. They may not be as simple to use. It blows my mind how much people talk about how tech can do amazing, world-changing things while simultaneously telling themselves that alternative methods of online communicati…

A good friend from grad school (UK) emailed me last week. He had quit Facebook. I immediately responded and the interaction was much more meaningful than passive info sharing over Facebook. It was great to catch up, and get a more personalized and open message.

That being said it takes a lot more effort. Chances are it'll limit the number of people we keep in touch with. But that's probably not so bad, as it'll force us to focus on the people we care about most.

Re: Facebook's Adam Mosseri on Why You'll See Less Video, More from Friends

#34

Post by MBCook »

fogzen wrote: post #26
skshogun wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can still switch between algorithmic and chronological order on Twitter. At least on their mobile website

Are you sure? I have “show best tweets first” turned off and my tweets are not in chronological order after signing in to check right now.

Third party apps are my solution to this. They do what I want.

I like Tweetbot.

Re: Facebook's Adam Mosseri on Why You'll See Less Video, More from Friends

#35

Post by mancerayder »

unmango wrote: post #29
mancerayder wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't one of those "Why don't they just..." type posts where it's obvious why not. It's a serious question, like why can't they do this? I mean presumably there's some answer where they say that they have tested it and the current scheme increases engagement, or something like that My answer is: The same reason Chrome took away the ability to stop video autoplay. The same reason the Roku apps are crippled so, fo…

I disagree. Most people wouldn't flip the switch. And by most I mean 99.9% wouldn't even know what the option does. I think the real answer is: adding such a switch would be very very hard UX-wise. Also imagine what would happen to users that flipped the switch and then never knew how to turn it back off, or whatever. You get the idea.

I mean, I disagree with your disagreement, but do either of us have data to back ourselves up? The idea that people would or wouldn't do one thing?

I do know one thing: Facebook news has become a source of derision due to its quantifiable impact on divisiveness in the US politically. And a scandal erupted on the topic of Russia funding of political ads.

There's a fantastic article on the general topic of Facebook news here: https://medium.com/the-mission/the-enemy-in-our-feeds-e86511...

With all this mess, it's inconceivable that only .01% of people would toggle these settings.

I won't argue against the idea of the UI being too complicated, that sounds absurd to me although I'm no UI designer.

Re: Facebook's Adam Mosseri on Why You'll See Less Video, More from Friends

#36

Post by giarc »

sgwealti wrote: post #28
skybrian wrote: post #4

If they wanted to put users in control they'd let us filter out all videos. Instead it's ranking algorithm knows best.

This! I don't want to see any video content.

I'm fine with video, but I'd like the volume control to be single video specific. Right now, if you watch and listen to one video, the volume remains on for the remaining videos that autoplay when you scroll by. I'd prefer that volume is off unless I tap on a video.

Re: Facebook's Adam Mosseri on Why You'll See Less Video, More from Friends

#38

Post by officemonkey »

cryptoz wrote: post #2

Never forget that Facebook has "tweaked" its newsfeed to specifically make hundreds of thousands of people feel sad and depressed for days or months, just to see if they could. And then they bragged about how great they are in a published paper that violated all ethics and morals worldwide. Why will I see less video, and more from friends? Because I won't be on facebook. Edit: From FTA: > But the other is a lot of th…

"Contagious" by Jonah Berger talks about how anger and anxiety makes people share memes. I find that Facebook and the organizations that use it are NOT interested in my mental health. They're interested in triggering my sharing response.

I quit FB and my mental health improved.

I don't mind using Goodreads because Amazon and I have the same goal: they want me to buy and read books, and guess what? So do I.

Re: Facebook's Adam Mosseri on Why You'll See Less Video, More from Friends

#40

Post by DashRattlesnake »

carlesfe wrote: post #11
CPLX wrote: post #5

Why don't they just give us the ability to customize what we want to run on our feed? Like we could choose chronological, controversial, event based, whatever, I'm sure they could be creative, some could be algorithms. They could keep the default they have now which most people wouldn't change. Then they could inject ads by whatever means they want and we could check them out or click on them or ignore them as we see…

Agree. I'll add my $0.02 because I know FB engineers read HN, and also to provide material to n-gate :) Everybody uses FB differently. Some people use it to share and read news. Others as an "aggregator" for different services (Insta, Twitter...). Others for groups. Or chats. Or to connect with businesses. I use it exclusively to share posts and pics with friends. However, after years and years of using the "hide all…

> Everybody uses FB differently. Some people use it to share and read news. Others as an "aggregator" for different services (Insta, Twitter...). Others for groups. Or chats. Or to connect with businesses. I use it exclusively to share posts and pics with friends.

> Wrapping up, I'm sure that Facebook has identified 5-6 clear use cases of its platform. Why isn't the news feed tailored for them? I simply do not understand it. Give more of what I want, or my engagement will drop. Give me my friends posts, and a few ads in between, and I'll be a happy Facebook user, surely it can't be that hard?

You're approaching this wrong. You're not Facebook's customer, you're it's product. They don't care how you want to use it, they only care about what will keep you on it and seeing what they want you to see. They're not going to optimize their website to fit your preferences. They want to maximize their value metrics, not yours.

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