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Facebook tried to make its platform a healthier place, but it got angrier

wsj.com

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Re: Facebook tried to make its platform a healthier place, but it got angrier

#51

Post by OneEyedRobot »

fortuna86 wrote: post #48
colinmhayes wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're thinking of their opinion section. The reporting is solid.

Which is another argument for scrapping the opinion section of every newspaper, it confuses people. But they keep it for the same reason FB doesn't turn down their own volume, angry people make for better customers.

>Which is another argument for scrapping the opinion section of every newspaper, it confuses people.

At this point, I'd say that that's the entire newspaper. They operate in the same ad space as Facebook.

Re: Facebook tried to make its platform a healthier place, but it got angrier

#52

Post by badRNG »

ipaddr wrote: post #35
JasonFruit wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MeWe has chronological feed order, and I've found fewer flame wars there. The user base is smaller and possibly more ideologically uniform, though, which may be an alternate explanation.

The big tent for everyone sites are toxic because people don't interact as closely in real life with people from different groups. We group for a reason. Within those groups common understanding on certain ideas is the connection. With that connection you let down your guard, you can be this side of yourself freely. In a big crowd you have to wear all faces to relate to everyone.

Anecdotally, I've seen far more polemic and vitriolic posts on so-called alt-tech social media sites compared to even Twitter and Facebook, which are horrendous in this regard. Sites like Gab, Voat, Ruqqus, etc seem to be filled with the absolute most toxic, angry, and hateful discourse imaginable.

I've noticed sites that tend to be for something other than "just chatting" tend to do better: many hobby specific forums, HN, hobbyist subreddits, etc. all seem to do better discourse-wise when focused on something specific, but I'm not quite sure why that'd be the case.

Re: Facebook tried to make its platform a healthier place, but it got angrier

#53

Post by rootusrootus »

mzkply wrote: post #6
maxfurman wrote: post #3

> Data scientists on that integrity team—whose job is to improve the quality and trustworthiness of content on the platform—worked on a number of potential changes to curb the tendency of the overhauled algorithm to reward outrage and lies. Mr. Zuckerberg resisted some of the proposed fixes, the documents show, because he was worried they might hurt the company’s other objective—making users engage more with Facebook…

Am I in the super-minority if I say I've unfollowed about 80% of my FB friends? I've never seen a political or outrage post in the last 3 years since I just unfollowed everyone but my closest friends and family.

I ended up in the same place, by a different route.

Because I spend too much time on HN, I was convinced that the correct answer was to delete my FB account. So I did.

But I really missed out on some family interactions, and after about a year I caved and created a new account. But I have been super careful about who is allowed to be my friend on FB. And for the few people I care about who still insist on posting political nonsense, I muted them. My feed on Facebook is basically inert, I only see posts about family things, pictures of grandkids, that kind of stuff. No politics at all. I'm glad to have it back.

I am more careful now to appreciate that HN commenters lean heavily toward the extremes, and do more due diligence in my own decision making to ensure I'm being sensible, not reactionary, when I follow advice that originates here.

Re: Facebook tried to make its platform a healthier place, but it got angrier

#54

Post by mdoms »

Is anyone else finding this WSJ reporting a bit overwrought? They got access to some internal documents and decided to make hay while the sun shines, but most of it is frankly not very interesting. WSJ pretty clearly have an axe to grind and are building a narrative in an unbalanced way.

Re: Facebook tried to make its platform a healthier place, but it got angrier

#55

Post by bingohbangoh »

VortexDream wrote: post #14
mzkply wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I in the super-minority if I say I've unfollowed about 80% of my FB friends? I've never seen a political or outrage post in the last 3 years since I just unfollowed everyone but my closest friends and family.

I unfollowed everybody, joined a bunch of local special interest groups and met a ton of new people who lived in the same city. Facebook is actually an incredible tool to connect with other people. But the more I saw how FB behaved, the less I wanted to be involved in any way with their business. I ended up deleting my FB account, which even now 3 years later I feel was a huge loss for me. But I just can't do FB anym…

I've always been surprised that Facebook did not try to spin out Events like they did with Messenger.

Facebook Events is an incredible product.

Re: Facebook tried to make its platform a healthier place, but it got angrier

#56

Post by kmeisthax »

badRNG wrote: post #7
warning26 wrote: post #4

It all comes down to every PM's favorite metric: engagement . When users get into a heated flamewar, that's high-engagement. So you want to do everything you can to ensure that the most possible users get sucked into flamewars. I feel like this should be banned, but it's unclear what the best approach would be. Mandating chronological feed order?

Don't the constant flamewars push people away from Facebook, thereby reducing engagement in the long run? I quit Facebook several years ago because I honestly just didn't like the experience. It was miserable and I didn't enjoy going to it any longer. I have the phone numbers of my closest friends and family, why wouldn't I just call or text when I want to talk to them?

Facebook is following the same playbook that a lot of mobile games are doing. They don't really care about user attrition because most users are low-value. If you're just checking Facebook once or twice a day, you're probably not worth the server time cost to Facebook. What they really are trying to do is target high-engagement users ("whales" in mobile game developer slang) and make the service more addictive for them.

Re: Facebook tried to make its platform a healthier place, but it got angrier

#58

Post by zelphirkalt »

VortexDream wrote: post #44
zelphirkalt wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is supposed to make you feel that way. That is on FB's agenda to achieve, in order to bind you to their (dis-)services. Real friends will not require you to use FB and sacrifice your privacy to communicate with them. You might feel a loss, but there are alternative ways of communicating. Get as many friends as possible over to messengers, which are not owned by FB. Give people a call every now and then. Write them…

I guess you missed the part about meeting new people? I'm in contact with people I know over other apps. But there's no replacement for that discoverability of local groups and events or facilitating the meeting with new people.

When you meet friends, are there never new people around? Do they never introduce you to their other friends? How did people get to know people before FB became big?

There are other websites, where you can find local groups of people. Some also group you into local areas, so you know anyone around there will be living nearby.

I do not see a problem with meeting worthwhile new people.

"FB is the only way." or "there is no replacement" are an illusion.

Re: Facebook tried to make its platform a healthier place, but it got angrier

#59

Post by mullingitover »

My recommendation for making Facebook a healthier place: unfollow everyone and everything. There are scripts that will automate this process for you.

Once you have a completely blank slate Facebook feed, you're free. You can proactively look up your friends' activity if you want to, but otherwise you just get the good parts of facebook (like event invites and a chat app) and great meme groups like "This cat is CHONKY" and "Foods with threatening auras."

Re: Facebook tried to make its platform a healthier place, but it got angrier

#60

Post by foobarian »

wheybags wrote: post #20
mrweasel wrote: post #10

One reason why Facebook keeps failing in increasing "meaningful social interaction" could be because they at the same time tries to sell ads. It seems like it would be easy to simply exclude "reshares" from users news feed. They could try to: "Sort by date" and "only posts posted/shared by my friend directly". Personally I think that would remove much of the toxicity. Secondly, simply ban news sites from the platform…

While I'm sure there are some people at fb genuinely trying to "fix" toxicity, overall the issue is that they're not trying to fix it. They want to do the minimum possible to protect their image / bottom line, they don't care if it actually works. Actually fixing toxicity is one way to improve their image, but appearing to try can be good enough.

It's really difficult to make that kind of change from the rank and file. Once revenue is involved, it's amazing how nervous people get and nobody wants to approve some change that might lose as little as fractions of a percent of the money stream. There has to be a clear, explicit mandate from leadership that acknowledges there will be a revenue hit, and absolves any project members from bad outcomes / or rewards them for participation. I.e. it's hopeless :-)
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