Facebook is cooked • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook is cooked

#141

Post by etrautmann » Fri, Feb 20, 2026, 7:41 PM UTC

da02 wrote: post #10

HoldOnAMinute wrote: post #3

I'm a parent in my 50's. "Peak Facebook" is years in the past for me. But it was great for a while. My spouse, friends, friends' spouses, and I were all sharing stories and pictures of our kids, travels, and experiences, such as dining experiences or hikes. There was so much joyous sharing. And it wasn't done for clicks, views, or monetization. It was just friends, sharing their experiences, encouraging each other, e…

What do your social groups use nowadays?

Almost all chat threads in messages, signal, or occasionally in slack or discord or something else.

Re: Facebook is cooked

#142

Post by mattfrommars » Fri, Feb 20, 2026, 7:41 PM UTC

da02 wrote: post #10

HoldOnAMinute wrote: post #3

I'm a parent in my 50's. "Peak Facebook" is years in the past for me. But it was great for a while. My spouse, friends, friends' spouses, and I were all sharing stories and pictures of our kids, travels, and experiences, such as dining experiences or hikes. There was so much joyous sharing. And it wasn't done for clicks, views, or monetization. It was just friends, sharing their experiences, encouraging each other, e…

What do your social groups use nowadays?

Personally, it’s all through WhatsApp

Re: Facebook is cooked

#143

Post by chistev » Fri, Feb 20, 2026, 7:42 PM UTC

cat5e wrote: post #66

sunir wrote: post #11

We lost the Internet to AI. Just accept it. It's bots talking to bots about bots.

I will never roll over for the lizard man

Don't you use WhatsApp?

Re: Facebook is cooked

#144

Post by mkehrt » Fri, Feb 20, 2026, 7:42 PM UTC

euleriancon wrote: post #26

I 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…

My facebook page, which is where I have friended everyone I met between like 2004 and 2017 is absolute garbage.

But I have a secondary account where I follow a few specific niche groups on a specific topic that are only on facebook. This page is actually fine, and is pretty good at suggesting related pages.

Not sure what the takeaway is for facebook though.

Re: Facebook is cooked

#145

Post by sbrother » Fri, Feb 20, 2026, 7:42 PM UTC

da02 wrote: post #10

HoldOnAMinute wrote: post #3

I'm a parent in my 50's. "Peak Facebook" is years in the past for me. But it was great for a while. My spouse, friends, friends' spouses, and I were all sharing stories and pictures of our kids, travels, and experiences, such as dining experiences or hikes. There was so much joyous sharing. And it wasn't done for clicks, views, or monetization. It was just friends, sharing their experiences, encouraging each other, e…

What do your social groups use nowadays?

Similar experience for me and at this point it's just a collection of private chats. Different groups use different platforms (mine are on iMessage, Whatsapp, Signal, Slack, and.. actually Messenger although apparently Facebook is taking that away soon). It kind of feels like real-name social media is a failed experiment at this point.

Re: Facebook is cooked

#146

Post by tartoran » Fri, Feb 20, 2026, 7:43 PM UTC

mattfrommars wrote: post #140

Facebook is still has excellent marketplace Only that keeps me going back.

I stopped using Facebook for a while but I agree that their marketplace used to be pretty good for a while, that until it started to be spammed with scams. It became really unusable IMO.

Re: Facebook is cooked

#147

Post by holoduke » Fri, Feb 20, 2026, 7:44 PM UTC

For me Facebook is no longer relevant for friend stuff. But I find it pretty good in group stuff. For example their are groups about my town where I live. Historical groups or modern ones. Or a group about a specific car model I own. I just have to filter out all the ai / porn slop that goes into my feed.

Re: Facebook is cooked

#148

Post by cwoolfe » Fri, Feb 20, 2026, 7:45 PM UTC

what comes after facebook?

Re: Facebook is cooked

#149

Post by ASalazarMX » Fri, Feb 20, 2026, 7:45 PM UTC

weregiraffe wrote: post #40

sunir wrote: post #11

We lost the Internet to AI. Just accept it. It's bots talking to bots about bots.

Facebook is not the Internet.

But AI slop is not limited to Facebook. It really is all over the Internet, it dominates entire topics in search engines.

Re: Facebook is cooked

#150

Post by dmschulman » Fri, Feb 20, 2026, 7:46 PM UTC

One thing I've noticed is a large difference between what's served on Facebook's desktop site and what's served on their mobile version. I don't use the app, I just log into facebook.com on my phone, but the mobile version is serving 100% more of this AI slop than on desktop.

I think it's obvious why given the way users interact with sites/apps on their devices vs on desktop (they want to make FB mobile as TikTok-like as possible), but it's really striking how much of Facebook on mobile is just a bunch of AI slop at this point. I see some creep in on desktop too, mostly within the Reels/Shorts section (same creators/videos on both platforms, that is), but to see my recommended feed content be so vastly different indicates a lot to me about how the algorithm interprets user behavior and a lot of Meta's thinking about mobile audiences.

EDIT: mind you I don't follow a single topic or favorite anything on the platform, the content being served/recommended to me is purely based (as far as I can tell) on gender/demographic info they know about me and user behavior.