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Facebook is cooked

pilk.website

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Re: Facebook is cooked

#191

Post by mikepurvis »

pdpi wrote: post #116
gus_massa wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And as a sibling comment says, also WhatsApp. The guy is always two steps ahead.

There's two separate things at play here. One is "I don't want to use Meta products as a matter of principle", and WhatsApp's a no-go if that's your posture. The other is "I don't want to drown in horrible, algorithm-curated junk content". Instagram is just as bad as Facebook there, but WhatsApp is definitely not the same.

100%. Whatsapp is still zuck, but it doesn't have a "feed" and that's the most important thing about it for me.

Re: Facebook is cooked

#192

Post by mtmail »

greatgib wrote: post #173

Also something that frustrated me a lot is that when browsing with the web browser on a computer, there is absolutely no way to share a link to a post. For exemple there is a post with details about an event that will happen, when you look at available options: you can't click on it to go to a dedicated page like on LinkedIn, there is no option in the menu to have a shareable link. You can share with: someone on fb m…

There's a perma-link when you click on the date of the post. But you're right, on the 'Share' button they have 5+ options, none of them is "copy link" or similar.

Re: Facebook is cooked

#193

Post by cogman10 »

ieie3366 wrote: post #176

You are just not the target audience. Meta is a trillion dollar company and their algos are extremely optimized. It probably detected your gender (male), age, location, social graph, as a combination of all these that you would be interested in AI-generated softcore pornography. And for the average user with your stats, they absolutely are. Of course, nobody at Meta hardcoded their algorithm to do this: it’s just nat…

yup.

I get a couple of thirst traps in my feed, but not many. I definitely get a metric ton of AI shit.

The stuff I'm actually following, friends, etc is pretty diluted.

Re: Facebook is cooked

#194

Post by bentcorner »

sparky_z wrote: post #111
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…

> It all just went away, starting with the husbands. I honestly can't tell whether I'm supposed to interpret this as "The dads lost interest in Facebook before anyone else", or "Everybody got divorced."

Personally I stopped using Facebook because even in the before-AI days it started becoming a glamour photo book of everyone you ever knew (and probably lots of people you only kind of sorta know), and while people certainly deserve to do and see great things, seeing it all shoved in your face every day becomes exhausting in a keeping-up-with-the-joneses kind of way.

I totally get that not everybody is like that, but I am, and so I stopped going to Facebook.

These days I'm in private Whatsapp groups for my direct family and so I learn about what they do, and not the random stuff that my neighbors and 20-years-past classmates did.

My wife is still active on Facebook and I actually do still visit occasionally to boost her posts but that's about it.

Re: Facebook is cooked

#195

Post by haunter »

Ancapistani wrote: post #163

I use Facebook a lot, but not for the social feed - Marketplace, business pages, and ads. I’ve never interacted with their “shorts” feature, and it’s all young women and girls in as little clothing as they can manage. It’s to the point that I don’t open the Facebook app in public. Ridiculous.

Same, Facebook Marketplace is really good at my location because there is nothing else and never have been. It's not like Facebook destroyed something, no one else offered a classified sites like this

Re: Facebook is cooked

#197

Post by KellyCriterion »

ge96 wrote: post #83
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…

YT is like this too, if you're not logged in, thirst trap, crazy stuff until you build up a search history (even not logged in)

True: You have to curate your feed / search history a little bit to get much better results

Re: Facebook is cooked

#198

Post by SamuelAdams »

This is not unique to Facebook. Reddit has seen a large uptick in AI-generated posts, or repeated posts from the past.

I think we need to recognize that social media of 2026 is not the same as what we had in 2006. AI generated content, regardless of if it is image, video, or text, is here to stay. And it will only get better and more convincing as the technology improves.

What people really need to ask is this - what do they want to get out of social media? Is it personal relationships and status updates? Is it entertainment? Is it something in between?

The harsh truth is most people at this point use social media for entertainment, and AI content is entertaining, or at least engaging, to most people. Remember that 54% of USA adults read below a 6th grade reading level [1]. It is not perfect, but it is convincing enough that a large enough number of people are beginning to accept it as "real".

[1]: https://www.nu.edu/blog/49-adult-literacy-statistics-and-fac...

Re: Facebook is cooked

#199

Post by unsharted »

reddalo wrote: post #79
gniv wrote: post #48

I 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.

And that's almost as sad as Discord "forums". It's useful information that's completely siloed out from the public web.

On a positive note, posts from groups I was interested in have been targeted at my feed by the algorithm. Still not public, but least there is some sort of exposure to "passers-by"

Re: Facebook is cooked

#200

Post by georgemcbay »

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…

> But if we did use it (which I have no intention of doing), it would start being more reasonable.

It would start being more "relevant" but not necessarily more reasonable.

I hadn't used Facebook regularly in many years but recently posted a story about the passing of my 18 year old cat. I did this as a way of informing friends and family I don't communicate with on a constant basis that I was going through a bad time (I was very fond of my cat).

My Facebook algorithm is now just almost entirely a solid wall of people I don't know announcing the death of their cat. A non-stop parade of personal tragedies.

I can see the connection of how one thing led to the other but it also highlights how clumsy and soulless these algorithmic systems are.

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