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Facebook's experiments with user behavior in Serbia

nytimes.com

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Re: Facebook's experiments with user behavior in Serbia

#21

Post by werewolf »

mtgx wrote: post #2

I understand why the media is frustrated about this. Zuckerberg basically promised them all of this traffic if they just "go all in" with Facebook. And now he's pulling the blanket from under them - just like the media was warned he would do, and they didn't listen. That said, from an objective point of view, first off the media is not entitled to the user's home page in a random social network. They should have neve…

Don't turn this into "media fighting against Facebook" thingy or whatever you just tried. It's not only about them. Yes, they have the strength/influence and they used it. But what about every other Page? What about small businesses and communities that are now losing their viewers? They have no chance to get noticed if they want to speak up against those changes. And yes you can say that they should expect it, but maybe not? I think you shouldn't because FB is just using its strength and is negatively affecting freedom of the internet. Why freedom of the internet? Because of the size of the mass that they can reach.

Re: Facebook's experiments with user behavior in Serbia

#23

Post by 52804375092485 »

nof wrote: post #12

Just boycott Facebook already. 'but everyone uses it', yes but you have a choice. If you don't like the Facebook, then gtfo and make the effort to build something to replace it. But I guess that is too much work. People whine about Facebook, yet they do nothing to change the situation. You change the situation by making a choice. If your choice is to have Facebook account, then you are part of the problem, not the so…

So uh, how far along is your Facebook-killer?

Re: Facebook's experiments with user behavior in Serbia

#24

Post by Ygg2 »

aaron-lebo wrote: post #7
sremani wrote: post #5

Even though their formats are different NYT et al. and FB are competitors. Even though there is kernel of truth, the media witch-hunt of Facebook is out of proportion. Long story short, its not concern for democracy (if NYT was concerned about democracy it would not be a rabid partisan) its just jealousy and hate that Zuckerberg is eating their cake.

The anxiety seems proportional to Facebook's reach, does it not? Does anyone else have that reach? Don't believe you can support your second paragraph. You can't erase the points an article makes by identifying a potential motive, and surely in an organization the size of the NYT, there's room for lots of motives. Whether they are jealous or not, Facebook is still a threat to democracy.

The anxiety also seems proportional to NYT's fading influence.

Re: Facebook's experiments with user behavior in Serbia

#25

Post by mantas »

_archon_ wrote: post #19

Correct. Your democracy is not his laboratory. His website, however, is. If you want to control the behavior of Fbook, buy it. If you want pageviews from people's news feeds, make things which people decide are worth sharing. From a user perspective, doesn't moving non-person-related (actually social media) things to a separate feed make the ux better?

The problem is FB indoctrinated users and soft-killed most alternatives. A regular user don't care to signup for a newsletter or RSS feed. They "like" page on FB and think that's enough to get updates.

I asked around and many non-tech people think liking a page equals subscribing. Both pages owners and regular users. They think they communicate to each other. Well, in fact they don't.

FB is dangerously close to monopoly if it isn't one already. But I wonder if any gov has the guts to deal with it. Even EU seems to be in bed with Zuck.

Re: Facebook's experiments with user behavior in Serbia

#26

Post by mantas »

nof wrote: post #12

Just boycott Facebook already. 'but everyone uses it', yes but you have a choice. If you don't like the Facebook, then gtfo and make the effort to build something to replace it. But I guess that is too much work. People whine about Facebook, yet they do nothing to change the situation. You change the situation by making a choice. If your choice is to have Facebook account, then you are part of the problem, not the so…

The solution is not to build FB killer. The solution is to decentralise the web. Let's embrace newsletters and RSS feeds once again.

I recently came back to using RSS feeds and it feels great. The problem is that many websites don't maintain their feeds properly. Broken links, missing content and whatnot.. I guess nobody ever uses them aside from weirdos.

Re: Facebook's experiments with user behavior in Serbia

#28

Post by Ygg2 »

nof wrote: post #12

Just boycott Facebook already. 'but everyone uses it', yes but you have a choice. If you don't like the Facebook, then gtfo and make the effort to build something to replace it. But I guess that is too much work. People whine about Facebook, yet they do nothing to change the situation. You change the situation by making a choice. If your choice is to have Facebook account, then you are part of the problem, not the so…

> then you are part of the problem, not the solution

Are you going US vs THEM on 2 billion people? Good luck with that.

Re: Facebook's experiments with user behavior in Serbia

#29

Post by kadenshep »

loceng wrote: post #9
nof wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What an uneducated answer from what I assume is a techy. Facebook is a treat to democracies. There are more articles on this than the other way around.

Treat or threat?..

What? You couldn't guess what he was at least trying to get at? If you were really confused, you could have substituted each word and then disregarded the substitution that makes absolutely no sense.

Re: Facebook's experiments with user behavior in Serbia

#30

Post by kirillzubovsky »

_archon_ wrote: post #19

Correct. Your democracy is not his laboratory. His website, however, is. If you want to control the behavior of Fbook, buy it. If you want pageviews from people's news feeds, make things which people decide are worth sharing. From a user perspective, doesn't moving non-person-related (actually social media) things to a separate feed make the ux better?

I believe the issue isn't that the articles aren't been shared Natively, but that in order to even appear for a chance of being shared, page owners need to use the "promote" feature first, which costs money.

Users don't go to pages on FB to find new info, they expect to see it in the feed. This way only paid content gets seeing, and otherwise you are SOL.

Not to say that it isn't expected, FB needs to chase growth and likes, but it's still unpleasant in a world where people are making FB synonymous with the internet.

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