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Facebook User Growth, Time Spent Fall on News Feed Changes

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Re: Facebook User Growth, Time Spent Fall on News Feed Changes

#91

Post by chocolatebunny »

firasd wrote: post #33

From my readings, something Facebook has been struggling with for a couple years is getting people to post more personal updates. Thus their Newsfeed changes de-prioritizing articles, and thus (I figure) their experiments such as showing short posts in large font sizes, and enabling MySpace-like gradient backgrounds on text posts... This dynamic makes me recall something: Anyone remember how back in the day (like 200…

The wall to wall stuff loses its practicality when my mother joined Facebook. Informal group chat among friends happens on chat programs like hangouts and whatsapp were you can have a large group of friends in one chat for a very long period of time. Where nothing is said for a while until someone posts "is anyone down for pizza?" or "did you see that ludicrous display last night?"

Re: Facebook User Growth, Time Spent Fall on News Feed Changes

#92

Post by jarcoal »

Swizec wrote: post #50
Firebrand wrote: post #30

Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter usage are all down. People are just spending less time on social media apps for some reasons these days. https://www.similarweb.com/blog/social-media-usage

The trend is moving towards private chatrooms (whatsapp, telegram, slack, messenger groups). People are tired of public social media. Even as a pretty public twitter/fb/etc person, I'm finding that my social activity increasingly happens in private and semi private chats. For most of my friends, they use chat groups exclusively. The only times they post on Facebook/Instagram publicly is when they need to brag about s…

Discord also seems to be growing rapidly.

Re: Facebook User Growth, Time Spent Fall on News Feed Changes

#93

Post by danudey »

nikanj wrote: post #71
firasd wrote: post #33

From my readings, something Facebook has been struggling with for a couple years is getting people to post more personal updates. Thus their Newsfeed changes de-prioritizing articles, and thus (I figure) their experiments such as showing short posts in large font sizes, and enabling MySpace-like gradient backgrounds on text posts... This dynamic makes me recall something: Anyone remember how back in the day (like 200…

Posting anything deeper than dank memes & news seems futile, when The Algorithm decides who can see your post. If they want people to make better content, they need to start figuring out why people feel like their better content gets no audience.

There was an article that I can't find for the life of me about how someone suffering with depression had killed himself, and it was only a long time afterwards that any friends friends knew because Facebook hadn't been showing his posts.

IIRC they looked through his feed and there had been basically cries for help, but no one had seem them because Facebook was prioritizing engagement and not personal content.

How many other people are trying to reach out on Facebook, thinking that no one cares, when the reality is that no one even sees?

Re: Facebook User Growth, Time Spent Fall on News Feed Changes

#94

Post by amasad »

Instead of Facebook flailing about trying to come up with the best news feed algorithm to please everyone they should just give the consumer a choice. Imagine an "algorithm store" that lets developers build and publish ranking algorithms that users can buy and use.

Re: Facebook User Growth, Time Spent Fall on News Feed Changes

#96

Post by nerfhammer »

Firebrand wrote: post #30

Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter usage are all down. People are just spending less time on social media apps for some reasons these days. https://www.similarweb.com/blog/social-media-usage

"we compared app data from Q1 2015 to Q1 2016"

this data is 2-3 years old now.

Re: Facebook User Growth, Time Spent Fall on News Feed Changes

#97

Post by dkasper »

danudey wrote: post #90
btilly wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worse yet, do you know how frustrating it is to be told that there are no more updates available while you know that you a missing life events from friends that actually posted them. After a while you realize that there is no point in posting your own because they will similarly not show up for friends. Cutting back on FB has become ever easier over time.

My wife and were 'in a relationship' on Facebook within a few months of meeting each other. Then we were 'married'. Even still, for the first four or so years that we had each other on FB, it wouldn't show me her posts. They just weren't in my feed, I'd scroll down so far I was seeing content from months ago, but I'd never see anything she'd posted that week. Eventually it took me telling FB I didn't want to see post…

You'd think Facebook's algorithms would prioritize your spouse, but you could use friend lists to make it do what you seem to want. You can add people to your "close friends" list and you'll get notified whenever they post. Also tends to put their posts in your feed more from what I can tell (based on the minimal amount that I use FB these days).

https://www.facebook.com/help/598069963644156

Re: Facebook User Growth, Time Spent Fall on News Feed Changes

#98

Post by losteric »

volkk wrote: post #29
tn_ wrote: post #12

This is a chance before the U.S mid-terms for them to prove to the public they've learned from their mistakes.. 1). prevent the spread of fake news.. they need a better solution than the user-tagging bs if an article is valid or not. there was a scientologist that had an account that wasn't active for 5+ years, that started posting how puerto rico wasn't that bad when the storm first hit. why is this account not bein…

> 3). ban fake accounts / tie in a real human behind the account. 100000 fake users means a lot less to me if i'm an advertiser than 10 real people. so i posted this in another thread in response to twitter, and it got kind of drowned out but with regards to authoritative/oppressive governments subpoenaing facebook to get a user's identity for voicing an opinion that isn't in line with the regime's. how do you solve…

Anonymity and bots are an interesting problem. As users become more anonymous, by creating interest-specific accounts, changing their posting behavior, and use proxies, they converge on the behavior of bots trying to masquerade as humans.

Total anonymity means total freedom of speech and total lack of trust in speech.

Facebook needs to find it's balance between anonymity that increases activity while eliminating trust, and strong trusted identities that limit activity based on social pressures.

Re: Facebook User Growth, Time Spent Fall on News Feed Changes

#99

Post by Puer »

For people using uBlock Origin who want to hide all of the noise on their Facebook and truly see what their friends are posting, here are some useful filters:

facebook.com##div._3ccb:has-text(/ commented on this./)

facebook.com##div._3ccb:has-text(/ replied to a /)

facebook.com##div._3ccb:has-text(/ liked this post from /)

facebook.com##div._3ccb:has-text(/ liked this./)

facebook.com##div._3ccb:has-text(/ commented on a post from /)

facebook.com##div._3ccb:has-text(/ reacted to this./)

facebook.com##div._3ccb:has-text(/'s cover photo./)

facebook.com##div._3ccb:has-text(/ likes /)

facebook.com##div._3ccb:has-text(/ are now friends./)

facebook.com##div._3ccb:has-text(/ is interested in an event./)

facebook.com##div._3ccb:has-text(/Sponsored/)

facebook.com##div._3ccb:has-text(/Suggested Post/)

facebook.com##div._3ccb:has-text(/A video you may like/)

facebook.com##div._3ccb:has-text(/ shared /)

!facebook.com##u_fetchstream

!facebook.com##._4-u2[id*="u_fetchstream"]

I got tired of seeing seemingly hundreds of, "Your friends reacted to this ad page 5 months ago" or "Here's another advertisement disguised as a page you might be interested in." I realized after I implemented these that I see maybe 2 or 3 new posts a day from my 500 friends, and of these posts the majority of them are political in nature and don't interest me. The only reason I still continue to use FB is for the messenger app as I still think it's the most convenient compared to other platforms.

Here's what my feed looks like with the rules implemented (they aren't FULLY currently up to date either because FB continually updates the phrases, but good enough for me). I also hid a lot of the junk on the sidebar with the element picker. I have no interest in using FB as a platform for buying and selling and the "News Ticker" (if you can call it "News") is just tabloid garbage. I have 4 posts in the past day before I get the "There are no more posts to show right now" message.

https://i.imgur.com/AbBnPo3.png

Re: Facebook User Growth, Time Spent Fall on News Feed Changes

#100

Post by BinaryIdiot »

danudey wrote: post #90
btilly wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worse yet, do you know how frustrating it is to be told that there are no more updates available while you know that you a missing life events from friends that actually posted them. After a while you realize that there is no point in posting your own because they will similarly not show up for friends. Cutting back on FB has become ever easier over time.

My wife and were 'in a relationship' on Facebook within a few months of meeting each other. Then we were 'married'. Even still, for the first four or so years that we had each other on FB, it wouldn't show me her posts. They just weren't in my feed, I'd scroll down so far I was seeing content from months ago, but I'd never see anything she'd posted that week. Eventually it took me telling FB I didn't want to see post…

Geeze, I had the EXACT same issue. I almost NEVER see stuff from my wife (even after I marked her stuff as something I want to see). I always see friends that I never interact with and their events that they're going to or all of the meme pages my friends like. But my wife's stuff? Not very much.

I hate using Facebook. The only reason I haven't removed my account is because it's the only way to keep up with certain friends and family. I feel like I am forced to use it simply because there isn't anything better for them to broadcast on.

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