It's a complete mystery to me how Facebook operates. Like, they need money to keep the lights on, right? Where is the money coming from if no humans are using the platform?
Government funded!
Yes, erm, why do you think they get the tax breaks!
Facebook is cooked
121–130 of 890 posts
Re: Facebook is cooked
#122I haven't used Facebook in probably a decade or so. I've missed out on Facebook Marketplace apparently - at least 5 people in this thread mention using Facebook for that specifically, and I have heard numerous friends talk about snagging good stuff person-to-person like I used to do with Craigslist. OTOH, I haven't heard anything especially good about Facebook Marketplace's UI or features, just that "everyone is on Facebook", so it reaches a lot of people.
I wonder what will be next after Facebook Marketplace dwindles (assuming eventually "everyone" is no longer on Facebook). Going back to Craigslist? Something new?
Re: Facebook is cooked
#123I had a similar experience recently, where I logged in to Facebook after not using it for years and was shocked by how much garbage was there. My spouse does use Facebook somewhat regularly so I looked at her feed and it was much more reasonable. I wonder if for those of us that haven't used Facebook in years the recommendation algorithm is essentially default. Which much like the default youtube algorithm, is comple…
I still log in fairly regularly and get a bunch of reasonably targeted content, but also a ton of ragebait ai shit like protestors attacking cops. So it’s a bit of both, they’re just flooded with bad ai posts. It’s changed drastically in the past year, from a bunch of posts you could argue make sense, to mostly posts of rage. But the number of actual friends posts is basically zero
Re: Facebook is cooked
#124We lost the Internet to AI. Just accept it. It's bots talking to bots about bots.
You just need to find a smaller walled garden that can be tended, and not care deeply about having a massive audience and you can still find interesting conversation.
The gardens that need the most tending, and that will have the most impactful rewards for individuals and communities as a result of said tending, exist in meatspace. Stop searching for walled gardens on the internet and focus on whatever is around you wherever you are. Stop using "More social media but different this time!" as the solution to broken social media.
Re: Facebook is cooked
#125I can sympathize with this take, but I think it misses the point: the platform is not broken. It's delivering people precisely what they want. If you look at the version of this for young people - TikTok, Snapchat stories - it's the same thing. Busty models, increasingly AI generated, and various made-up "heartwarming stories" or rage bait. Go to YouTube, and you have more of the same.
This is not even an internet-era thing. Before that, some of the best-selling magazines were basically celebrity gossip. Facebook just found a way to scale it and make more money off of it.
The only thing that surprises me now is that people don't actually mind it if you point out that they're liking, commenting, or resharing AI slop. It doesn't even matter that the story wasn't real. It's enough that the kitten is cute, or whatever.
Re: Facebook is cooked
#126all the AI / crap shown in this post is the not awful part of facebook.
the awful part is the intense swarm of hateful bigots that arrive at any post that shows any kind of misfortune on the part of people who are not white and republican. I'm pretty sure that a large number of these accounts are not bots; they're real people living around the country, seething in bigoted hatred who can now post with impunity the most vile and disgusting crap I've ever seen.
Example: A local news post shows three boys who have been reported missing (yes, people's children missing, and no, this is not about immigration - for those posts, the hate and racism is vastly worse). The three boys happen to be Black. Only one comment is actually displayed beneath the photo: "They all look the same to me!" - then more (I'm cutting and pasting these from the actual post just now): "Tell them by their hair??? No???" "How can you tell one from another?" "Did'n do nuffin man" "Missing or escaped!?" comments flooded by revolting, actual racism, against innocent children who are potentially in severe danger. Moderation is not an option at all here, there's thousands of these people swarming any such post, the posts are from some local news source that comes from an aggregator of some kind that does no moderation of any kind, nobody cares, it's just a huge platform for vast mobs of the most deplorable people you ever hoped didn't exist.
This site needs to be closed down like yesterday.
Re: Facebook is cooked
#127I can't understand how such AI slop ca make money on FB or TikTok. I mean hardly anything gets viral.
Re: Facebook is cooked
#128They capitulated to TikTok by adding thirst content and suggested content based on activity.
Re: Facebook is cooked
#129I nuked my fb account years ago. I wasn't sure at the time if I was craving more substance or if it was becoming more vapid. Looking back not... definitely both.
Re: Facebook is cooked
#130I login for the groups. Some private groups have a ton of useful info that's well organized, plus helpful folks that are eager to answer questions.
Groups and Marketplace seem to be the main genuine uses in many non-US countries.