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Facebook Overhauls News Feed to Focus on What Friends and Family Share

nytimes.com

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Re: Facebook Overhauls News Feed to Focus on What Friends and Family Share

#181

Post by dx034 »

dfee wrote: post #95

I wonder if enough of the core-base was eroding that they were forced to make this change. I've been logged out of Facebook since October, and I know a few other friends who have as well. That's not really relevant, except that this group all had membership on Facebook at the 1 year mark - early 2005.

I tend to think the same. I switched to twitter, instagram (I know, also facebook) and messengers and stopped using facebook altogether. Many of my friends did too and I'd guess that FB can see that in their numbers.

Re: Facebook Overhauls News Feed to Focus on What Friends and Family Share

#182

Post by nepotism2018 »

mrweasel wrote: post #178
nepotism2018 wrote: post #173

The fact that I'm not allowed to order my newsfeed by latest permanently is a big problem!

I have the same issue, I wouldn't call it a big problem, just annoying. What it does is show us where Facebook believe there's a possibility to make a profit, and it's not by keeping you up to date with your friends lives.

Sure, at minimum it is annoying. For me i'm always checking latest political, sports or technology news, although this might come across pretty bad but I put my facebook "world" in the same category so I want the latest updates all the time

Re: Facebook Overhauls News Feed to Focus on What Friends and Family Share

#183

Post by laaph »

thinkloop wrote: post #74
archiepeach wrote: post #45

Good intentions or not, we must remember that history has proven time and time again, when any entity has far too much unchecked power, it is inevitably exploited by bad actors. A user base of two billion users without any real accountability is a scary thing. The only people policing Facebook are Facebook. We would never agree to a having a single dictator who answers to no one, why should Facebook be treated any di…

Because unlike a dictator Facebook has zero real power over your life? It's a site of puppies and horoscopes, you think we should be dealing with them like we do Kim Jong Un? How have we moved so far on the personal responsibility scale. Why aren't people partly responsible for not making better use of their time? Facebook is an "evil echo chamber", "wasting people's lives", "catering to business", etc - ALL THEY DO…

> ALL THEY DO IS HOST YOUR FRIENDS' PHOTOS

If that's all they do, why do they just show me my friend's political rants and never the photos? I have to click on a specific person to see their entire timeline these days ("Most recent" only shows me a couple things, and then tells me to add more friends), and it's almost always their political rants and links, and rarely their photos.

I've started using Instagram, ironically also owned by facebook, because it's photos and not weird political rants.

Re: Facebook Overhauls News Feed to Focus on What Friends and Family Share

#185

Post by frik »

jp555 wrote: post #105
untog wrote: post #35

I very much hope this isn't just words. The core problem, IMO, is that content that makes us angry, anxious or jealous is a much better driver of clicks than content that makes us happy. I'm sure Facebook knows this. If they really mean it, they'll accept that they will make less money as a result of this change. It would be the right decision in the long term, but the short term will hurt.

Are clicks the majority of revenue for FB? An ad unit that fills a users screen for a few second as they scroll throughout the day every day is super super valuable to brand advertising. I think that’s ~$450 billion of the total ~$500 billion total annual global ad spend. To me browsing the fb feed is a lot like like flipping through tv channels used to be. Brand advertising loved that too. I’d think the More people…

Facebook is already a ghost town, it's too late to change direction. Unfortunately because of Zuck people got feed up of social network sites.

Re: Facebook Overhauls News Feed to Focus on What Friends and Family Share

#186

Post by moccachino »

wutbrodo wrote: post #140
thinkloop wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because unlike a dictator Facebook has zero real power over your life? It's a site of puppies and horoscopes, you think we should be dealing with them like we do Kim Jong Un? How have we moved so far on the personal responsibility scale. Why aren't people partly responsible for not making better use of their time? Facebook is an "evil echo chamber", "wasting people's lives", "catering to business", etc - ALL THEY DO…

Seriously. I get the argument that the brain has flaws that can be manipulated to some degree, and I think it is seriously worth considering, but HN has really jumped the shark when it comes to these conversations. To hear this forum tell it, everybody is powerlessly cowering beneath the lash of their electronic devices, completely unable to make any decisions about their usage.

The ugly truth is that while you may be very conscious of how you spend your time online and what you interact with, the majority of people simply is not, and many people are ill-equipped to even understand how they are being manipulated to scroll a bit more, play another game or vote for the wrong candidate.

Re: Facebook Overhauls News Feed to Focus on What Friends and Family Share

#187

Post by marbletiles »

untog wrote: post #35

I very much hope this isn't just words. The core problem, IMO, is that content that makes us angry, anxious or jealous is a much better driver of clicks than content that makes us happy. I'm sure Facebook knows this. If they really mean it, they'll accept that they will make less money as a result of this change. It would be the right decision in the long term, but the short term will hurt.

> The core problem, IMO, is that content that makes us angry, anxious or jealous is a much better driver of clicks than content that makes us happy.

Right ... and if they're not careful here, they'll just go back to how FB was before the brands all moved in: people posting content that made each other angry or anxious.

A FB feed full of people trolling one other and squabbling about politics in long comment threads might look like it's "sparking conversations" and worth promoting in News Feed, but it's fundamentally going to be the same sort of turn-off as any badly-run forum is.

The core core problem is the content incentives: whether for brands or individuals, FB incentivises content that gets interactions, and without moderation of some kind that leads inexorably to trolling/clickbait.

Re: Facebook Overhauls News Feed to Focus on What Friends and Family Share

#188

Post by eckza »

freehunter wrote: post #92
eckza wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just... get your real friends to text you. If they won't text you, they're not your real friends. (This isn't always true, but I'd say that it's 95% accurate.) I'm not being condescending or pretentious. I have done this, over the last few months, and it's helped me to realize who's really worth having in my life on a daily basis, and who's not.

I don't want my friends texting me everything. That's far more disruptive than a passive feed I can glance at. And I don't want to text my friends everything either. One of the great things about Facebook is the unexpected social interactions. I post a picture and someone I haven't talked to in a while comments something really great on it and sparks a conversation and rekindles the friendship. That's not going to ha…

That’s fair.

I am personally going through a period where I need to tighten my circle and cut down on the number of people that I communicate with on a given day, so that’s what’s driving my approach.

Thank you for sharing your perspective.

Re: Facebook Overhauls News Feed to Focus on What Friends and Family Share

#189

Post by eckza »

rspeer wrote: post #168
eckza wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, HN's search feature is killer and has never let me down.

Is this sarcasm, or are you referring to Algolia?

It’s not! I just use the search bar on the bottom of HN. I can always find what I’m looking for.

Re: Facebook Overhauls News Feed to Focus on What Friends and Family Share

#190

Post by JasonFruit »

marbletiles wrote: post #187
untog wrote: post #35

I very much hope this isn't just words. The core problem, IMO, is that content that makes us angry, anxious or jealous is a much better driver of clicks than content that makes us happy. I'm sure Facebook knows this. If they really mean it, they'll accept that they will make less money as a result of this change. It would be the right decision in the long term, but the short term will hurt.

> The core problem, IMO, is that content that makes us angry, anxious or jealous is a much better driver of clicks than content that makes us happy. Right ... and if they're not careful here, they'll just go back to how FB was before the brands all moved in: people posting content that made each other angry or anxious. A FB feed full of people trolling one other and squabbling about politics in long comment threads m…

Wow, who are your friends? I regularly interact with people I'm not angry at, even on Facebook.
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