Facebook removed the news feed algorithm in an experiment • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook removed the news feed algorithm in an experiment

#131

Post by wussboy » Thu, Oct 28, 2021, 12:14 AM UTC

dataflow wrote: post #104

lanerobertlane wrote: post #32

When people argue against the 'news feed algorithm' they mean anything other than a reverse chronological feed of posts from the people they follow. status updates, and interactions between people/pages you both follow. This article mentions that they turned the news feed off but people were still hiding posts from pages they don't follow, which friends had commented on. These shouldn't appear in a news feed that is…

I can't tell if they want us to believe none of their brilliant minds realize this, or that they deliberately wanted a test that would give them an excuse to keep things as is.

Which one is more likely? There’s your answer.

Re: Facebook removed the news feed algorithm in an experiment

#132

Post by yodsanklai » Thu, Oct 28, 2021, 12:41 AM UTC

aahortwwy wrote: post #127

yodsanklai wrote: post #93

I'm under the impression that people are getting irrationally afraid of "algorithms". Like if some evil AI is controlling people mind. People wants to read the stuff they are interested in. No algorithm is forcing people to watch fox news for instance. That being said, FB should give the option to disable the news feed algorithm (or to have several version to choose from maybe), if that makes people happy.

Engagement loops do control people's minds. They explicitly aim to maximize the amount of time people spend on a platform. They are inherently manipulative by definition. It's common when interacting with an engagement loop to experience a loss of agency (perceived, at least). People don't like that feeling, even when they like the content they are being shown. Machines can be built to exploit odd elements of human p…

I think "control" is too strong of a word. I'm sure they can influence behavior but other things do influence behavior (advertising, medias, TV, sugar) and we're not excessively worried about them.

Re: Facebook removed the news feed algorithm in an experiment

#133

Post by Consultant32452 » Thu, Oct 28, 2021, 12:41 AM UTC

azinman2 wrote: post #125

Consultant32452 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm highly skeptical of those claims. This seems mostly like wild claims from legacy media that doesn't want you to watch streaming video. Yes, I'm familiar with the relevant studies.

Which studies are funded by legacy media? There are undoubted way more that are not. I’ve been fed all kinds of UFO and other strange videos by YT myself.

I believe you. The question is not whether you were fed conspiracy theories, it's how effective were they and "compared to what?" Because that's what's implied by these articles/studies. They claim "people are radicalized," which is very different than "people watched some UFO videos."

How many people watched Youtube videos and were radicalized into believing in flat earth, aliens, etc?

Compare that to how many people watched legacy media and were radicalized into believing that Iraq had nukes and Trump was a Russian agent?

Re: Facebook removed the news feed algorithm in an experiment

#134

Post by 8eye » Thu, Oct 28, 2021, 12:46 AM UTC

that was the worst thing to happen to facebook. before the newsfeed people barely talked about ridiculous political standpoints and it was more engaging. sure people sometimes posted a thing or two on their own but now everyone is an expert about things they read from for-profit news conglomerates, terrible for people with anxiety and ptsd because that was one of the main places people met, so turning facebook off is like going into total isolation for some. but going on the site definitely increased anxiety and traumatic triggers in people who would otherwise avoid the news

Re: Facebook removed the news feed algorithm in an experiment

#135

Post by insin » Thu, Oct 28, 2021, 1:03 AM UTC

Just delete your Facebook account.

Re: Facebook removed the news feed algorithm in an experiment

#136

Post by pxlpshr » Thu, Oct 28, 2021, 1:13 AM UTC

wodenokoto wrote: post #22

asimpletune wrote: post #12

I don’t remember what Facebook had instead of a news feed in 2008, but I do remember thinking Facebook was so cool then. When messenger came out, it was amazing. It was totally normal then to message random people who you thought were cool and just have a conversation. I would even get random chats from Facebook employees. It just seemed so different then than now. I’m just trying to piece together the evolution of F…

They had the news feed back then too, although it looked very differently. The two major differences between fb and myspace was the forced layout and that you didn't have to browse the site to see if there were updates on friends walls. The major difference is what people are posting, and how tangentially related to your network, the posts on your newsfeed are. Back then celebrities and news media weren't part of the…

This is exactly how I feel as an end-user over the same time period to the point that I don't even login anymore except for work. It's exhausting and it's no longer about the projected vision of "connecting people", it's about connecting people to content and other monetizable assets as a first-order priority in everything they do and touch.

This is why Facebook/IG is unrecoverable to me as a destination for connecting with the people I care about. Instead, it's become iMessage and I'm quite happy about that. No ads and the conversations/photos are a lot more authentic compared with social media.

I still love social media as a form (I think), it's just become more media and less social.

Re: Facebook removed the news feed algorithm in an experiment

#137

Post by mikem170 » Thu, Oct 28, 2021, 1:24 AM UTC

KaiserPro wrote: post #96

mikem170 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putting users into echo chambers is not narrative control? They could have made the algorithm so it showed users brand new different material, or opposing material, or more details, or related material from friends instead of corporations, or from people geographically nearby, or chronological, or let users find their own material and/or build their own feeds. Instead of any of that they show them similar material, l…

> so it showed users brand new different material, or opposing material Brand new, yes, facebook is biased to new stuff. Its just there is a high incentive to repost old shit, because spammers know its effective. Opposing material? no, that requires comprehensive understanding of the context of the share, the content of the material and the target audience's overton window. > let users find their own material and/or…

I didn't comment on what was best or what kept people engaged or happy, I made the point that facebook does have narrative control, they decide on the algorithm. They don't give users that option.

Re: Facebook removed the news feed algorithm in an experiment

#138

Post by aahortwwy » Thu, Oct 28, 2021, 1:53 AM UTC

yodsanklai wrote: post #132

aahortwwy wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Engagement loops do control people's minds. They explicitly aim to maximize the amount of time people spend on a platform. They are inherently manipulative by definition. It's common when interacting with an engagement loop to experience a loss of agency (perceived, at least). People don't like that feeling, even when they like the content they are being shown. Machines can be built to exploit odd elements of human p…

I think "control" is too strong of a word. I'm sure they can influence behavior but other things do influence behavior (advertising, medias, TV, sugar) and we're not excessively worried about them.

I think it's exactly what they do. Control doesn't have to be total. People lying in bed doomscrolling for hours are being controlled, even if just partially, by an engagement loop.

Engagement loops, like the other things you listed, are not inherently "good" or "evil". What organizations use them for may be good or evil, but that's a separate discussion.

Re: Facebook removed the news feed algorithm in an experiment

#139

Post by worrycue » Thu, Oct 28, 2021, 2:12 AM UTC

suzzer99 wrote: post #95

azinman2 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YTs recommendations are infamous for getting people radicalized, into conspiracy theories, and filled with misinformation.

YT continues to push Jordan Peterson videos on me even though I've downvoted them many times. Other friends report the same thing. I think the algorithm has figured out that if it can get people into JP, there's a chance they go down into more extreme rabbit holes and thus become super-engaged. So it's worth it for the algorithm to keep trying to push JP even on people who don't seem interested at first.

Don't downvote. It's probably seen as "engagement".

Click the "..." on the recommendation and choose "Not Interested" - optionally you can specify you don't like the video.

Re: Facebook removed the news feed algorithm in an experiment

#140

Post by s17n » Thu, Oct 28, 2021, 2:59 AM UTC

xg15 wrote: post #108

s17n wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can say that explicit curation and intention is the way things "should be" as much as you like, but all the evidence suggests that most people strongly prefer automated curation.

> all the evidence suggests that most people strongly prefer automated curation. What evidence would that be? I don't think having to actively force a feature on your audience is a good sign that they prefer it.

Platforms based on automated curation thriving while platforms based on manual curation wither. If Facebook gave people the opportunity to turn off the algorithmic feed, and they took it... they'd just spend all their time on TikTok instead.