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Facebook is cooked

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Re: Facebook is cooked

#471

Post by macintux »

idiotsecant wrote: post #452
flir wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife was complaining about far right knuckle draggers turning up in her feed. I assume the algorithm was shovelling more of them at her because she was rubbernecking. I told her to try a "block every time" approach. It took about two weeks until her feed was (mostly) free of them but it still throws one at her now and again. I offer this as a data point about how hard it is to turn a polluted feed around. But I'm…

I mainly want to clean other people's feeds. There are an enormous amount of people that I need to undergo an algorithm detox.

Yeah, there's always someone saying "Just delete your Facebook account" as if that solves the underlying "Facebook is actively encouraging divisiveness" problem.

Re: Facebook is cooked

#472

Post by mirekrusin »

hmokiguess wrote: post #158
mirekrusin wrote: post #87

I think author goes on porn sites and it skews algo towards crap like that (no cookies/incognito/etc doesn't save you from them tracking where you move), especially if he's not active on fb then that's the only signal they get.

Takes one to know one? Could you elaborate

Meta is $201B total revenue business, virtually all advertising.

Instagram is estimated to generate half of ad revenue.

WhatsApp and Messenger contribute relatively little to ad revenue.

So facebook.com alone must be generating around $100B revenue annually.

It's impossible that something generating this revenue is serving AI generated NSFW teens pics with botnets commenting on those pictures only.

Real humans must be engaging with real ads at massive scale to make this money.

Failure mode for people reporting "I didn't use fb for a while, then I come back and see adult-like dominated content" sounds like plausible explanation of ad revenue optimized algo with weak, singular signal.

It could also be just cold start problem where algo has zero engagement signal and yields thirst traps for { gender: male, age: ~30s, engagement_history: [] } state.

But it's hard for me to believe that - frankly it doesn't sound like the best output if you want to capture somebody who has real friends and family in their network, did the algo really learned that people with this input state click likes on pics like that?

Why not just serve engagement from friends network or even "wish happy birthday to X tomorrow" instead – sounds like better way to engage to me.

ps. I also don't use fb but I do login maybe once a year / every two years to double check I'm not hacked, can still login etc. When I do it I may spend few minutes scrolling and I can see just posts from my network (double checked again now, lgtm).

Whatever issue OP has, they probably should spend few minutes engaging, maybe just dismiss/click don't like/hide/whatever it is to signal they're not interested - algo should pick it up and their feed should look more like what they expect.

What's your explanation?

Re: Facebook is cooked

#473

Post by arcticfox »

jballanc wrote: post #469
blibble wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's worse, cigarettes never threatened democracy the solution is real easy, section 230 should not apply if there's an recommendation algorithm involved treat the company as a traditional publisher because they are, they're editorialising by selecting the content vs, say, the old style facebook wall (a raw feed from user's friends), which should qualify for section 230

The problem with this is that section 230 was specifically created to promote editorializing. Before section 230, online platforms were loath to engage in any moderation because they feared that a hint of moderation would jump them over into the realm of "publisher" where they could be held liable for the veracity of the content they published and, given the choice between no moderation at all or full editorial respo…

Even if they can't afford it... Too bad for them?

I am kind of rooting for the AI slop because the status quo is horrific, maybe the AI slop cancer will put social media out of its misery.

Re: Facebook is cooked

#474

Post by Nursie »

jedberg wrote: post #204

> So: is this just something wacky with my algorithm? No, it's not. Once Meta identifies you as male, you will get almost exclusively thirst trap posts no matter what you do. It started about two years ago. Some other interesting points: A woman posted on reddit recently saying she noticed her son's feed was filled with this stuff, so she created her own instagram account, identified as a man, and had the same feed.…

> no matter what you do

I made them go down markedly by setting my age to be over 100. Doesn’t stop some of the thirst trap ‘reels’, but all the “Asian women would like to get to know middle aged guys like you!” bullshit went away.

Re: Facebook is cooked

#475

Post by someotherperson »

pwrsysengineer wrote: post #348
jedberg wrote: post #204

> So: is this just something wacky with my algorithm? No, it's not. Once Meta identifies you as male, you will get almost exclusively thirst trap posts no matter what you do. It started about two years ago. Some other interesting points: A woman posted on reddit recently saying she noticed her son's feed was filled with this stuff, so she created her own instagram account, identified as a man, and had the same feed.…

I created a Facebook account a few years ago to get in on the local marketplace deals. After opening the website a few times and seeing very suggestive content, I had the idea of tailoring my feed to the most racy things I could find. Eventually, my feed was filled images of children wearing bathing suits and in suggestive positions, censored images of sexual acts, and AI generated images of elderly women with large…

Yeah you should probably delete those photos. Nobody is going to believe your story (myself included).

Re: Facebook is cooked

#476

Post by ipaddr »

flir wrote: post #384
shirro wrote: post #336

The algorithm has been given a job todo. First priority on any platform is engagement and a well functioning, complete human being is not going to be engaged by rage bait and hate. They are rare, precious jewels. The shit gets dumped on people who are lonely, have a grudge, feel left out. It is relentless and escalates until their brains cook. Algorithmic social media is a massive social harm. The people who are in d…

My wife was complaining about far right knuckle draggers turning up in her feed. I assume the algorithm was shovelling more of them at her because she was rubbernecking. I told her to try a "block every time" approach. It took about two weeks until her feed was (mostly) free of them but it still throws one at her now and again. I offer this as a data point about how hard it is to turn a polluted feed around. But I'm…

How can we complain that everyone is siloed and no one talks to each other and complian that their feed is full of ideas outside of the silo.

Re: Facebook is cooked

#477

Post by eek2121 »

rconti wrote: post #410
jedberg wrote: post #204

> So: is this just something wacky with my algorithm? No, it's not. Once Meta identifies you as male, you will get almost exclusively thirst trap posts no matter what you do. It started about two years ago. Some other interesting points: A woman posted on reddit recently saying she noticed her son's feed was filled with this stuff, so she created her own instagram account, identified as a man, and had the same feed.…

I've been a male (it's in my profile!) for all 22 years (yikes) I've been using facebook. I don't get that stuff.

There is definitely more to this. I’ve been on Facebook since it opened up to the public, and they know for a fact that I am a guy.

I literally only use it to communicate with family. I logged in today on both desktop and iOS, and the only thing I saw were updates from friends/family that I personally know.The only AI things were from a nerdy friend that created/shared/disclosed of it being AI, the rest was real stuff that I already knew about.

If users are seeing this, it is more likely something to do with settings, Facebook not knowing anything about you, or some other mechanism.

I am absolutely not holding them blameless, I am saying: compare notes and identify the actual problem, because I know a lot of folks using Facebook, and from conversations I had in the past hour or two, none of them see any of that, so there is likely something else going on.

Re: Facebook is cooked

#478

Post by PantaloonFlames »

timacles wrote: post #459
javascriptfan69 wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I genuinely think we will look back at the algorithmic content feed as being on par with leaded gasoline or cigarettes in terms of societal harm. Maybe worse since it is engineered to be as addictive as possible down to an individual level. Then again maybe I'm being too optimistic that it will be fixed before it destroys us.

Yeah might not ever get fixed. It is the perfect tool for mass influence and surveillance of the people. The powers that he would never let it go

It's literally why Leon bought Twitter. A Mass influence vehicle.

Re: Facebook is cooked

#479

Post by xethos »

AlienRobot wrote: post #450
Aurornis wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So the algorithms for people that travel internationally a lot are drastically different from the people who remain stationary. I can confirm the same experience as the parent commenter for my family who still use Facebook even though most of them don't travel internationally. > If Facebook wanted to prevent themselves from negative publicity, they might have a different experience for the people who have political…

It would be very ironic if the reason people complain about Facebook so ardently is that they just didn't have enough friends IRL in first place to make Facebook work the way it should.

I'd amend that as "didn't have enough [IRL] friends *on FaceBook* in first place", but that starts off a conversation about platforms being only-technically not required socially, network effects, etc.

Re: Facebook is cooked

#480

Post by the_af »

nephihaha wrote: post #106
ge96 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

Now and then it gets things right, but I find a lot of YT recs to be pretty dubious, and find it is trying to bias me in this direction or that direction. It's pretty pathetic. The search function is also useless. About the only Scottish history content I ever get rec'd is Scotland History Tours. While I like his channel, it is not the only show in town and it doesn't go very deep. When I got my last YT account I cou…

Interesting. I have a very different experience with YouTube, to the point I consider it my favorite social network thingy. My search history and subscriptions are carefully curated, and I mostly get "more of the same", with pretty good recommendations for stuff that usually interests me. Also, zero "thirsty" stuff.

Logged out, YouTube is of course a complete mess.

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