There used to be a secret url param to only show friends posts, no pages or groups. It was heavenly.
Facebook removed the news feed algorithm in an experiment
31–40 of 149 posts
Re: Facebook removed the news feed algorithm in an experiment
#32When people argue against the 'news feed algorithm' they mean anything other than a reverse chronological feed of posts from the people they follow. status updates, and interactions between people/pages you both follow.
This article mentions that they turned the news feed off but people were still hiding posts from pages they don't follow, which friends had commented on. These shouldn't appear in a news feed that is not curated as they are not following that page, and is one of the things people are complaining about in the algorithm.
They didn't test the algorithm vs no algorithm, they tested the current algorithm vs another algorithm.
Re: Facebook removed the news feed algorithm in an experiment
#33Data wins arguments. One of my least favorite Facebook quotes. Bad data wins arguments, too. The misdirection term here is 'news feed ranking algorithm'... and what that means in the experiment versus what you might think that means, huge difference. e.g. I think most would assume the algorithm is responsible for showing you an unknown post that a friend merely liked, but it's right there in the article as still happ…
You can say that explicit curation and intention is the way things "should be" as much as you like, but all the evidence suggests that most people strongly prefer automated curation.
I think the trouble is trying to have it both ways: excusing the existence of a curation algorithm because "people prefer it" [0] while also refusing to take all the responsibilities normally associated with a publisher who curates and delivers content.
[0] Never mind the more obvious problem that "people prefer it" is not a great excuse for intentionally makinga product as addictive as possible.
Re: Facebook removed the news feed algorithm in an experiment
#34I don’t remember what Facebook had instead of a news feed in 2008, but I do remember thinking Facebook was so cool then. When messenger came out, it was amazing. It was totally normal then to message random people who you thought were cool and just have a conversation. I would even get random chats from Facebook employees. It just seemed so different then than now. I’m just trying to piece together the evolution of F…
For the record, the turning point was 2016, when basically every single sleeper cell “friend” was activated by mass agitprop, leading to a frenzy of political activity, and in the process suffocating everything else valuable of human attention.
Yeah, and you could see it coming. I remember joking pre-2016 about the upcoming election, wondering how many of my friends would start unfriending each other. I had no idea how big a change was actually coming.
I wonder why it didn't happen in 2012. I remember ACA arguments on Facebook but while they were contentious, they were generally value-driven and not based off of batshit lies.
Re: Facebook removed the news feed algorithm in an experiment
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not if the other platform is decentralized and doesn't rely on advertising money.
>Not if the other platform is decentralized... Like all of the other decentralized social media platforms that most people just don't care about? I'd argue that social media has become so polarized that, no matter their views, most people will want some sort of centralized body setting rules that act in their (the user's) interests. >... and doesn't rely on advertising money. People have widely adopted social media b…
> centralized body setting rules that act in their (the user's) interests.
Not sure it's possible. Only if you (or your friend) are the admin, you will like the rules.
> How is such a platform staying online without charging users or using advertiser money?
It's much more secure and reliable (long-term) to have a sustainable small server for friends than to rely on a huge anti-user for-profit company. One could also create a paid service. For example, I am using a paid email-provider.
Re: Facebook removed the news feed algorithm in an experiment
#36I don’t remember what Facebook had instead of a news feed in 2008, but I do remember thinking Facebook was so cool then. When messenger came out, it was amazing. It was totally normal then to message random people who you thought were cool and just have a conversation. I would even get random chats from Facebook employees. It just seemed so different then than now. I’m just trying to piece together the evolution of F…
Maybe we were just younger and had friends who did cooler things?
Re: Facebook removed the news feed algorithm in an experiment
#37I don’t remember what Facebook had instead of a news feed in 2008, but I do remember thinking Facebook was so cool then. When messenger came out, it was amazing. It was totally normal then to message random people who you thought were cool and just have a conversation. I would even get random chats from Facebook employees. It just seemed so different then than now. I’m just trying to piece together the evolution of F…
According to Wikipedia, Facebook had a news feed in 2008; it was added in 2006, before which it was necessary to view a user's profile to see their posts. The switch to an algorithmically generated, rather than chronological feed started in 2011.
Facebook's decline, for me was not due to the feed being algorithmic. I think it got better around that time; showing original content from people I like to interact with first is a positive experience. What's not positive is showing me most things other than original content from my friends.
I'm not sure why the change happened, but at some point it did. Most of what I see posted on Facebook now is not original content from my friends. I mostly don't want to see third-party content. The share button was there long before I noticed this trend, but people are using it a lot more. I just went and cataloged 50 algorithmically-chosen posts. Here's the distribution:
Shared third-party post or link: 24
Original text: 9
Original image: 9
Directly-posted image of third-party content: 3
Promotion of a physical product by a page I follow: 2
Promotion of media by a page I follow: 2
Promoting own event: 1
Re: Facebook removed the news feed algorithm in an experiment
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can say that explicit curation and intention is the way things "should be" as much as you like, but all the evidence suggests that most people strongly prefer automated curation.
Not all automated curation is built equal and boiling it down to just one thing really confuses things. I absolutely adore YouTube's automated curation since the primary goal there is just to steer me to things I'll find interesting - the ads are present on all content and so YT just wants to keep me on the platform for as long as possible. When it comes to Facebook it always feels like I'm being steered towards topi…
I wonder how much wagging the dog FB has ended up doing to everyday activities? Do people give more weight to doing things that have a better opportunity for more FB engagement? (Thinking more on this I don't think FB is the sole culprit here)
Re: Facebook removed the news feed algorithm in an experiment
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
For the record, the turning point was 2016, when basically every single sleeper cell “friend” was activated by mass agitprop, leading to a frenzy of political activity, and in the process suffocating everything else valuable of human attention.
Yeah, and you could see it coming. I remember joking pre-2016 about the upcoming election, wondering how many of my friends would start unfriending each other. I had no idea how big a change was actually coming. I wonder why it didn't happen in 2012. I remember ACA arguments on Facebook but while they were contentious, they were generally value-driven and not based off of batshit lies.
Politicians are generally an older crowd. Obama got a lot of credit in 2008 for twitter use, wherein that use was basically tweeting campaign statements and updates.
It was probably 2016 by the time that politicians realised they could use social media to whip up such strong feelings to maybe benefit their campaigns.
People certainly disagreed with each other online in 2012 (I remember reddit had subreddits dedicated to complaining about how much pro Ron Paul content was posted in the mainstream subreddits), but I think it's the active engagement of the politicians themselves that turbo charged this.
Re: Facebook removed the news feed algorithm in an experiment
#40When people argue against the 'news feed algorithm' they mean anything other than a reverse chronological feed of posts from the people they follow. status updates, and interactions between people/pages you both follow. This article mentions that they turned the news feed off but people were still hiding posts from pages they don't follow, which friends had commented on. These shouldn't appear in a news feed that is…
I have no algorithm again, at least until FB decides to break it: