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Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

wsj.com

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Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#541

Post by yots »

fpgaminer wrote: post #299

You know what the internet needs? User agents. We've got this idea stuck in our heads that only the website itself is allowed to curate content. Only Facebook gets to decide which Facebook posts to show us. What if, instead, you had a personal AI that read every Facebook post and then decided what to show you. Trained on your own preferences, under your control, with whatever settings you like. Instead of being tuned…

It’s really not as sophisticated, but these guys[1] created an extension that in addition to their main objective of analyzing Facebook’s algorithm also offers a way to create your own Facebook feed. If I got it right, they analyze posts their users see, categorize them by topic and then let you create your own RSS feed with only the topics you want to see.

It’s not clear to me whether you may see posts collected by other users or only ones from your own feed and it seems highly experimental.

[1] https://facebook.tracking.exposed/

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#542

Post by cityzen »

GordonS wrote: post #533
cityzen wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The right course of action is to stop using Facebook. That's it, very simple. people here being polarized is exactly what Facebook wants. Current facebook users are akin to opioid addicts... probably found some relief from whatever social pain they were feeling that now they have accepted selling their privacy for their fix. I would say I can't wait for the day that Facebook is gone but it will be a long time conside…

I agree, but also from a different angle. The other day a friend told me about a takeaway place I should try. I couldn't find the menu on their website, and my friend replied that it was on theirbl Facebook page, and I should stop being a luddite. No, no , dammit! We're literally giving the world wide web to a single corporation, and worse, normalising it - to a lot of people, Facebook basically is "the internet". Ho…

Sometimes you just have to miss out on a good meal.

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#543

Post by baq »

pwdisswordfish2 wrote: post #526
munificent wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fundamental flaw is this: The primary content no user wants to see any every user agent would filter out is ads . Since ads are the primary way sites stay in business, they are obligated to fight against user agents or other intermediary systems. The ultimate problem is that Facebook doesn't want to show you good, enriching content from your friends and family. They want to show you ads. The good content is just…

"The ultimate problem is that Facebook doesn't want to show you good, enrishing content from your friends and family." Well, it is someone else's website. What do you expect Zuckerberg has his own interests in mind. In 2020, it is still too difficult for everyone to set up their own website, so they settle for a page on someone else's. If exchanging content with friends and family (not swaths of the public who visit…

i have a fundamental issue calling a content-curating, psychological-experiment-running platform visited by hundreds of millions of people daily 'someone else's website'. the fact that it is privately owned doesn't matter if nation states use it to wage information wars against other nation states' citizens. to make matters worse, the 'someone else' in question knows about it perfectly well and is fine with it because it means he's showing more ads.

this is plain and simple fucked up.

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#544

Post by [deleted] »

LordHumungous wrote: post #33

> Facebook policy chief Joel Kaplan, who played a central role in vetting proposed changes, argued at the time that efforts to make conversations on the platform more civil were “paternalistic,” said people familiar with his comments. I think Joel was right.

[deleted]

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#545

Post by baq »

nicoburns wrote: post #511
arihant wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pay for Facebook then. 1.5% of total YouTube users subscribe for YT Premium. I love how the smartest minds will ignore the most primitive economics. Ads work. For everyone. Except deluded.

Paid-for Facebook would be a viable business if it wasn't competing with free-facebook. It's not ignoring economics to think that Facebook is causing significant negative externalities that ought to be priced or regulated to allow more ethical alternatives to thrive.

free facebook should be regulated out of existence. what else is free that is good for you? in big cities you have to pay for clean air to breathe already.

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#546

Post by razzimatazz »

supernova87a wrote: post #149

I really didn't realize until perhaps the last 2 years that Facebook fundamentally tapped some hidden human need/instinct to argue with people who they believe are incorrect. Specifically, and more importantly, combined with the human inability to actively decide to not pay attention when things are inconsequential or not yet worth arguing about. Sometimes, just shutting up about an issue and not discussing it is the…

You are on to something. I interpret it as it is fantastic fun/addictive/dopamine-short-term-win to argue or discuss with someone. Especially if you can afford the hangover that outrage might lead to.

Face to face with people I know or at least recognize as human, not a bot, educated or at least not cartoon-hick-personality - Arguments can be great, because of the ability to see when to pull back and stop something from escalating. We are all human after all.

In internet-powered discussion, where numbers of people observing can be huge, and every username can feel inhuman or maybe even just trolling in an attempt to create a stupid argument - that Argument gets painful. But the dopamine hit is still there...

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#547

Post by TwoBit »

munificent wrote: post #461
fpgaminer wrote: post #299

You know what the internet needs? User agents. We've got this idea stuck in our heads that only the website itself is allowed to curate content. Only Facebook gets to decide which Facebook posts to show us. What if, instead, you had a personal AI that read every Facebook post and then decided what to show you. Trained on your own preferences, under your control, with whatever settings you like. Instead of being tuned…

The fundamental flaw is this: The primary content no user wants to see any every user agent would filter out is ads . Since ads are the primary way sites stay in business, they are obligated to fight against user agents or other intermediary systems. The ultimate problem is that Facebook doesn't want to show you good, enriching content from your friends and family. They want to show you ads. The good content is just…

Facebook would be perfectly happy to eliminate all ads if instead you paid a small or even tiny monthly fee. But you won't pay it.

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#548

Post by pwdisswordfish2 »

arihant wrote: post #484
a1369209993 wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The primary content no user wants to see any every user agent would filter out is ads. Not that you're wrong, but: that's the fucking point ! Advertising delenda est.

Pay for Facebook then. 1.5% of total YouTube users subscribe for YT Premium. I love how the smartest minds will ignore the most primitive economics. Ads work. For everyone. Except deluded.

That does not tell us much. Where can we look at YouTube's balnce sheet? There is likely more to YouTube as a business than selling ads on YouTube. For one, YouTube under Google is like AC Nielson on steroids. The combination easily rivals any "smart" TV.

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#549

Post by nsriv »

Calamity wrote: post #523
arihant wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pay for Facebook then. 1.5% of total YouTube users subscribe for YT Premium. I love how the smartest minds will ignore the most primitive economics. Ads work. For everyone. Except deluded.

You know the worst part? I do pay for YT Premium and yet Google still finds a way to throw ads at me on Youtube videos through videos it suggests via Google Feeds (the leftmost screen on a Pixel). I bloody pay for the service and yet I am still getting ads on any youtube video I play when clicking any youtube suggested video on that feed. How annoying do you think that is? When you give in and pay, yet you are still…

I had this issue as well and logging out (in my case, switching accounts) wiping Google app cache, and I think rebooting to make Pixel Launcher refresh, then logging back into the YT Premium subscribed account fixed it for me. Convoluted I know, but I think the issue was it wasn't picking up some profile variable or token denoting me as a subscriber. Hope that helps!

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#550

Post by carapace »

AlexandrB wrote: post #326
carapace wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I cannot believe that everyone is ethicality (sic) challenged... Why not? Ockham's Razor says to accept the most parsimonious explanation, and I think that's it. I mean look at little kids: they're amoral monsters. If they weren't so cute our species would have gone extinct ages ago. Look at our methods to train ourselves to be better people: religions cause wars while "Wolf of Wallstreet" is a big hit. ($392 milli…

The Wolf of Wallstreet was a scathing critique of capitalist excess. To think otherwise is to consider a lifestyle where your wife hates you and you crash your car on quaaludes because you've got nothing better going on glamorous.

FWIW I just found this fascinating tangent: https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/the-perfect-irony-that-t...

> THE PERFECT IRONY THAT ‘THE WOLF OF WALL STREET’ FILM WAS ALSO A REAL-LIFE SCAM

(caps in original)

> How Leo got caught up in a money-laundering scheme that screwed the Malaysian people out of billions.

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