How should sites design things like news feeds? Just go with their best guess as to how it should work, and then never change that?
Facebook's experiments with user behavior in Serbia
111–113 of 113 posts
Re: Facebook's experiments with user behavior in Serbia
#112Just boycott Facebook already. 'but everyone uses it', yes but you have a choice. If you don't like the Facebook, then gtfo and make the effort to build something to replace it. But I guess that is too much work. People whine about Facebook, yet they do nothing to change the situation. You change the situation by making a choice. If your choice is to have Facebook account, then you are part of the problem, not the so…
It's not too much work, it's too costly. Boycotts themselves are almost never successful or effective at all. The only way for any boycott to fully work is if a critical mass of people join the boycott, and that critical mass is almost never reached. For individuals to boycott without the critical mass accomplishes nothing.
For those people where leaving FB is just individually positive, absolutely they should do it. For those doing, e.g. political organizing where most of their audience is on FB, they are stuck in a terrible conundrum.
Personally, I think FB should be used where effective to reach people on FB, and everyone should try to make at least 70% of their posts be specifically discussions of what's wrong with Facebook. As much as possible, every comment and discussion should include a side reference criticizing the platform. If enough people get the problem, maybe some day we'll have critical mass for a boycott that might work.
Re: Facebook's experiments with user behavior in Serbia
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's not the point at all. Facebook just happens to be right now how most people discover and consume news, in many (most?) countries. This is a position of absolutely enormous power, giving Facebook the ability, deliberately or otherwise, to control and manipulate public discourse more than perhaps any entity in history. Moderation of public discourse – in the sense of keeping public discourse in a roughly central…
Facebook is not supposed to be public. That the random media got to fill up the pages there was a bad thing. Nobody is entitled to the visibility or exclusive treatment on the Facebook. There are much more posts than anybody can read, those using Facebook agreed to let Facebook apply its algorithms and designs.
> those using Facebook agreed to let Facebook apply its algorithms and designs.
Nonsense! EVERYONE clicks "I agree to the ToS" WITHOUT agreeing to the ToS. They don't read it, they don't understand it, they aren't agreeing to it. The suggestion that users actually agree is completely dishonest.