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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

#71

Post by moate »

fortuna86 wrote: post #45
VortexDream wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Facebook is actually an incredible tool to connect with other people. I guess you have to be a certain age, being < 40 you aren't going to meet anyone on FB anymore.

As someone in that cohort who was also there for the "glory" days of early FB (when you had to have a college email to sign up), I have to agree that at this point the idea of making friends on FB weirds me out. How? Why?

FB is what my racist parents use to circle jerk conspiracy theories with their friends in Cabo. Who in their right mind wants that anymore? (This is a rhetorical question, I understand there are still tons of people using FB, presumably because of inertia).

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

#72

Post by fortuna86 »

OneEyedRobot wrote: post #51
fortuna86 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Respectfully I disagree. The opinion section is fundamentally different (and damaging) to the news reporting, and shouldn't exist. But opinion content is many times more popular than straight news, it seems people like being told what to think.

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

#73

Post by rkk3 »

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.

> 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.

Yes but when I started unfollowing people who were over sharing political or outrage posts, that included my family, at which point I thought why bother using it at all.

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

#74

Post by mhh__ »

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…

The only time I ever have meaningful interactions on Facebook is in niche groups like meme groups with a few thousand people.

Every single one gets banned eventually. My favourite Top Gear meme group has been through I think 6 groups now.

Facebooks potential to destroy culture if they throw a hissy fit is dangerous and not being paid attention to.

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

#75

Post by themolecularman »

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…

Agreed.

But I think big tech didn't use their power years ago when advertisers started demanding their ads don't appear next to X, where X is the offensive thing/position/etc.

Big tech has power but it folded and immediately started policing when this happened. Instead of a united front each of them caved to advertisers and now the content on each platform must be kosher according to the ethics that the platforms' rulers have.

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

#76

Post by somedude895 »

elliekelly wrote: post #70
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…

I think another factor is that they’re trying to quickly turn a massive ship that has, for years, self-selected users intent on heading in the direction of outrage and toxicity. The people who are the most “engaged” with the platform are the people who get a dopamine rush from arguing and baiting and instigating. The nice people who just want to see what their friends are up to have either left or significantly scale…

Anecdotally this is what I've been seeing over the years. Most of my friends and acquaintances seem to have left Facebook behind and moved to Insta. The people that stayed on FB are mostly those who like to express strong opinions and engage in pointless discussions.
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