Facebook is cooked • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook is cooked

#21

Post by zadikian » Fri, Feb 20, 2026, 6:39 PM UTC

mgiampapa wrote: post #4

Social media is mostly about what you make of it and how you interact to find value. This is the same in Twitter, TikTok, FB, Instagram, even LinkedIn. If you don't interact with the product, you get lowest denominator crap.

Was curious what my abandoned FB shows if I log in now. Mostly posts from groups I joined ages ago that are surprisingly still active, some random local news articles, and ads for restaurants.

Re: Facebook is cooked

#22

Post by calvinmorrison » Fri, Feb 20, 2026, 6:39 PM UTC

j16sdiz wrote: post #9

It's not just facebook. Every social network under Meta is infected with bot. Facebook look worse because there are so few real users.

Twitter was for, almost ever, infected with basically spam and 'fake user counts'. These fake user counts were of course included in the numbers told to investors and it drove sales price of stock. Did you think facebook would ever be immune to that?

Re: Facebook is cooked

#23

Post by 0x1ch » Fri, Feb 20, 2026, 6:39 PM UTC

0x1ch wrote: post #8

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…

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Re: Facebook is cooked

#24

Post by operatingthetan » Fri, Feb 20, 2026, 6:40 PM UTC

What I don't understand is how FB and Insta are just full of spam (from spammers, not Meta AI) now. It used to be that FB was the absolute best at getting rid of spam and now they appear to be overcome by it?

Re: Facebook is cooked

#25

Post by ossa-ma » Fri, Feb 20, 2026, 6:40 PM UTC

Evidently there is such little real human content and engagement on these platforms yet how does the big number keep going up? Genuine question.

Do we need a way to audit usage stats in addition to financial numbers?

Re: Facebook is cooked

#26

Post by euleriancon » Fri, Feb 20, 2026, 6:40 PM UTC

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

Re: Facebook is cooked

#27

Post by HoldOnAMinute » Fri, Feb 20, 2026, 6:40 PM UTC

dtauzell wrote: post #19

0x1ch wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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Probably mean that their husbands were the first to quit Facebook.

Yes

Re: Facebook is cooked

#28

Post by Octoth0rpe » Fri, Feb 20, 2026, 6:40 PM UTC

The current leader for me for worst questions suggested by Meta's AI was on a photo someone took of some conspiracy theorist's van with the spraypainted message "THEY EAT BABIES IN DENVER". The suggested questions from their AI were:

- Baby-eating restaurants in Denver

- Denver's unique food scene

wtaf meta.

Beyond that, I simply don't see how Meta can possibly ever monetize their investment in AI. People are and will continue to be willing to pay OpenAI, Anthropic, google, microsoft. No one will pay Meta for their AI. And if their investment was only a couple million and they got some useless suggested questions out of it, whatever. But the size of their investment sure makes it look like someone thinks they'll make money off of it.

Re: Facebook is cooked

#29

Post by sgt » Fri, Feb 20, 2026, 6:40 PM UTC

I mean... I've been a Facebook user since 2006 and I don't see much spam at all in my feed. So I guess like PaulHoule said, it's a cold start problem and the defaults are terrible.

Re: Facebook is cooked

#30

Post by catlover76 » Fri, Feb 20, 2026, 6:41 PM UTC

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…

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