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The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

boffosocko.com

261–270 of 317 posts

Re: The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

#263
Some proof or data to back up the article's claim would be great. I'm not really buying it.

If moms auto-like every post, then how is that a relevant signal? Everyone has a mom. That would mean every post is getting penalized in the same way (which effectively means no posts are getting penalized).

And if circumventing this was as simple as excluding his mom, wouldn't the effect be even greater if he excluded all non-technical friends and family?

Which pretty much just means you're posting this for the greater public, which presumably a lot of users of Facebook's API already do. Since his intention is for his content to be seen by the greater public, then... go ahead and tell the API that?

It's a great angle for an article, and it's very shareable, but he provides no data (even though he seems like someone who would have all of the data).

Re: The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

#264
I find this interesting: So much talk about the technical solutions both in the post and in the comments here. Yet, it doesn't seem like he asked his mom not to like his tech posts. If that's the goal - why not start there?

Re: The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

#265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wait, wouldn't this cause buyer's remorse? like, if I just finally decided to buy some product ... being bombarded with all the other options suddenly makes me rethink my purchase decision, "oh but what if this other one is more gooder!?!?!"

I think the argument is cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias generally function to make you more happy with the one you bought already when presented with other alternatives.

I thought that cognitive dissonance was the buyer's remorse. I've experienced that a few times in my life. Now I've got no qualms about immediately taking stuff back.

Re: The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

#266
Dump facebook, it's sucks for basically everything. Ring your mom, tell her she's awesome and you love her. Wish I could ring mine...

Post a blog post to a real blog under your control. If you want a colleague to see it, email the link and ask for feedback.

There solved. It's a good algo too.

Re: The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

#267

I find a lot of sites feel like they're overtuning their recommendation engines, to the detriment of using the site. YouTube is particularly bad for this - given the years of history and somewhat regular viewing of the site, I feel like it should have a relatively good idea of what I'm interested in. Instead, the YouTube homepage seems myopically focused on the last 5-10 videos I watched.

The problem is the economics of the Internet today. Most sites are ad-funded. They need to maximize pageviews and time on site. The recommender is a huge part of accomplishing that, and it simply won't be tuned to any metric other than maximizing revenue. The solution would be to reskin popular sites with recommenders that had other objectives, such as retrospective satisfaction with time spent. Unfortunately sites k…

They can at least do right recommendations if adblock detected.

Re: The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

#268

I find a lot of sites feel like they're overtuning their recommendation engines, to the detriment of using the site. YouTube is particularly bad for this - given the years of history and somewhat regular viewing of the site, I feel like it should have a relatively good idea of what I'm interested in. Instead, the YouTube homepage seems myopically focused on the last 5-10 videos I watched.

The problem is the economics of the Internet today. Most sites are ad-funded. They need to maximize pageviews and time on site. The recommender is a huge part of accomplishing that, and it simply won't be tuned to any metric other than maximizing revenue. The solution would be to reskin popular sites with recommenders that had other objectives, such as retrospective satisfaction with time spent. Unfortunately sites k…

Thought just occurred: would I be willing to pay a subscription to have the recommender tuned to remove revenue maximisation and site-addiction maximisation? Would anyone?

I've made plenty of "remove ads" in-app purchases on my phone. This isn't too different. And it might actually result in a truly useful experience.

Re: The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

#269
post #225

For every social media site XX: Question: "Why does XX do things this way?" Answer: "Because it increases engagement." Why does the Facebook algorithm do this? Because it increases clicks. Why does Youtube use autoplay? Because it increases watch time. For every single social media site.

This article is about how while Facebook's intention is to increase engagement, it backfires in this specific case because the algorithm takes his mother's Like and interprets that as "this post will get the most engagement from family" when actually it was more targeted to outsiders.

For all we know the author's experience is a fringe case and Facebook's policy in this instance is successful.

Re: The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

#270
post #269
post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article is about how while Facebook's intention is to increase engagement, it backfires in this specific case because the algorithm takes his mother's Like and interprets that as "this post will get the most engagement from family" when actually it was more targeted to outsiders.

For all we know the author's experience is a fringe case and Facebook's policy in this instance is successful.

For sure. I just thought it sounded like compiler-guy hadn't quite understood what the article was claiming.
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