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

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

#111

Post by cptskippy »

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…

> 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.

But are they actually trying to turn? They say they are but all evidence points to them maintaining the status quo because fear and outrage boost engagement and engagement is king.

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

#112

Post by VortexDream »

moate wrote: post #71
fortuna86 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 sti…

It's not like I'd make friends on FB itself. For example, there'd be an impromptu meeting of random strangers in town for whatever event and you'd make friends through that. This was only a few years ago.

Or some woman randomly posted that she was going to the movies in like half an hour and would anybody be interested in joining? We became friends from that and ended up doing a lot of things together, and I know I never would've met her otherwise because of how our lives didn't overlap at all before meeting her.

FB can enable a lot of cool meetings with new people that I haven't been able to find anywhere else.

FB is, in the end, a tool. It's what you make of it. If your circle of contacts is tied up in conspiracy Trumpian bullshit, then sure, FB is a cesspool. But I was a part of plenty of special interest groups filled with incredibly friendly and helpful people. It's like a completely different world.

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

#113

Post by wussboy »

rgoulter wrote: post #66
badRNG wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So basically "How much daily misery can we put our users through algorithmically before they break down and uninstall"? Why does anyone who is sufficiently aware of this still use Facebook? Not even as an ethical question, why use something that makes your life miserable?

This reminds me of Jonathan Haidt's "Righteous Minds". One of the key points in the book is that "righteousness binds and blinds". As in, the 'righteousness binds' part is there's a social bond between people who believe the same thing. (And "blinds" is that the righteousness will blind you to certain truths). I think flamewars are like that. You gotta leave a comment otherwise you feel your side loses out.

I'm a huge fan of "The Righteous Mind" and think it is almost horrifically relevant for our times. Recommended to all.

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

#114

Post by vmoore »

adventured wrote: post #98

You make Facebook a healthier place by reducing connection and reducing velocity. The things that Facebook will absolutely never be willing to do. You reduce connection and velocity by ending feeds that show you most of everything, and switch to making people manually seek out what they want to get updates on. People will overwhelmingly be inclined to seek out updates and connections that they get enjoyment from, rat…

> switch to making people manually seek out what they want to get updates on

Twitter lists have been my go-to solution for a while now. Yes, I still get spammed by 'promoted tweets' but it's a small price to pay for keeping tabs on my interests and also: the interests of others (which is the concerning one). Keeping tabs on the very people you most despise. What is the saying: `Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer`? I do that all day on Twitter.

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

#115

Post by native_samples »

akira2501 wrote: post #84
somedude895 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> engage in pointless discussions. Pointless to some, I'm sure, but if they're that engaged it's meaningful to them. Viewed through that lens, then attempting to externally manipulate and cajole their conversations was never going to have a positive outcome or even impact on the rest of the userbase.

It feels like this is a core point that's somehow got lost here.

There's a lot of assumptions in these discussions that connections and sharing are only good and useful if the results look a certain way. People sharing dog photos: good. Sharing approved mainstream news stories: good. People posting personal politics: bad. People disagreeing with each other: also bad. Etc. But it's a purely subjective take. Maybe our society needs to talk about politics way more than it does. Historically, instead of talking there's often just been fighting, and everyone agrees that talking is far healthier.

Facebook's original working assumption was that connecting people and letting them communicate and share is inherently a valuable thing. Is that actually wrong? Clearly, there is enormous demand to discuss politics that was unleashed by the internet, whereas before then only a small number of people had the access to present their opinions to those around them via opt-in channels like TV, the press, etc. Other people had to make do with phone calls. Something once restricted to a very small group is now available to all. Unsurprisingly, the sort of people who feel ill when they see the results are those whose views are the same as those who previously had a monopoly on group communication of various kinds. The ones most engaged are the ones who feel the media ignore their worldviews.

It's pretty dangerous to just say, well, if people are arguing about stuff that the establishment wouldn't let them argue about before, then it's "toxic". It's certainly risky to blame social media as the cause rather than merely a symptom of disagreements that would be there anyway. Far better to have "toxic" social media than a revolution!

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

#116

Post by jimmaswell »

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…

Relevant CGPGrey: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc

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

#117

Post by ipaddr »

badRNG wrote: post #52
ipaddr wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 forum…

The people going to those sites or TheDonald in it's heyday are bonding over being able to say things that cannot be said elsewhere. To those users none of the discourse is toxic.

There are similiar left leaning sites where the anita hangout that have similiar discourse but no one finds it toxic.

Combine those two groups and you have the most toxic place where everyone feels attacked, the need to attack and piling on a victim feels good. That could describe twitter or other public squares.

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

#118

Post by moate »

Falling3 wrote: post #104
moate wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sti…

> 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? I was a freshman when Facebook was introduced and required a .edu email. I've used it on and off since the beginning. I've made lots of friends there - both local and in other states/countries. It…

I just don't know people that still use Facebook with any regularity. I understand selection bias is at play (I'm inclined to hang out with people like myself, and I think Facebook is a flaming trash-pit).

I made friends on Facebook years ago. I felt fundamental changes in both the user-base and use-cases that I don't find enjoyable. I assume most people under the age of 40 feel similarly, and those that don't aren't the type of person I'd want to be around.

I'll rephrase: It's not that I assume nobody is making friends on Facebook in this day and age, just that I'm less likely to want to befriend them myself and I was applying this personal assumption unilaterally.

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

#119

Post by Applejinx »

cptskippy wrote: post #111
elliekelly wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. But are they actually trying to turn? They say they are but all evidence points to them maintaining the status quo because fear and outrage boost engagement and engagement is king.

Well, that and rationalization. Everyone's subject to rationalization.

You can say 'maintaining the status quo because fear and outrage boost engagement'…

…and they can think 'we represent the social engagement of ALL people, how dare you tell us not to support genocide fanciers when our data shows that's a solid 27% of our actual platform'…

…and then they can say 'we are trying to turn the massive ship, Senator' and tell each other 'stay the course, we have a responsibility to ALL our users', and the whole time, engagement will still be king.

People don't always know why they're doing what they're doing, and even if they do, they won't always tell you.

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

#120

Post by romwell »

native_samples wrote: post #115
akira2501 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> engage in pointless discussions. Pointless to some, I'm sure, but if they're that engaged it's meaningful to them. Viewed through that lens, then attempting to externally manipulate and cajole their conversations was never going to have a positive outcome or even impact on the rest of the userbase.

It feels like this is a core point that's somehow got lost here. There's a lot of assumptions in these discussions that connections and sharing are only good and useful if the results look a certain way. People sharing dog photos: good. Sharing approved mainstream news stories: good. People posting personal politics: bad. People disagreeing with each other: also bad. Etc. But it's a purely subjective take. Maybe our…

The problem I see on FB is less with what people argue about, but how.

It feels like people are just saying things at each other trying to "win" an argument.

Of course, that's a problem with education, not FB. And I think it's a good thing that it's surfaced on FB.

FB can act as toxic behavior multiplier, though.

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