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Facebook removed the news feed algorithm in an experiment

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Re: Facebook removed the news feed algorithm in an experiment

#61

Post by moron4hire »

munk-a wrote: post #25
s17n wrote: post #18

Earlier 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…

YT's curation keeps trying to shunt me off into neoconservative conspiracy theory videos, which I never click on, but occasionally auto play if I've left the window in the background. About all I can figure I've done is watch some videos about military-themed multiplayer video games. I don't actually play these games, but sometimes the commentary is funny.

Facebook kept trying to sell me an Oculus Quest weeks after I had already bought one ("look at the metrics! 95% of people who saw the ad also bought the headset", "you're reading the graph backwards").

To me, it lays bare the myth of advertising analytics. All this data, all this tracking, and none of it is actually all that useful for the stated purpose. Makes one wonder if it's really all for fleecing advertisers or if it's to keep totalitarian regimes happy.

Re: Facebook removed the news feed algorithm in an experiment

#62

Post by 345344f34f »

gfosco wrote: post #6

Data 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…

One of my most frustrating experiences in tech when advocating for the consumer are data scientists that attempt to misrepresent the data. Meanwhile you have a company CEO at all hands telling people to "trust the data"

What the fuck?? How can data be trusted when the people responsible for its custody are not truthful about what the data represents??????

Re: Facebook removed the news feed algorithm in an experiment

#63

Post by jaywalk »

lanerobertlane wrote: post #32

When 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…

It seems Facebook is so far up their own ass that they actually think this "no algorithm" test they did is what people are clamoring for.

Re: Facebook removed the news feed algorithm in an experiment

#64

Post by 345344f34f »

s17n wrote: post #18
gfosco wrote: post #6

Data 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.

Give them a choice to enable or turn it off then, like Twitter did. Debate OVER.

Re: Facebook removed the news feed algorithm in an experiment

#65

Post by fsflover »

pipeline_peak wrote: post #57
fsflover wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suggest that only some servers are paid. Others can be run by yourself or your friends. And they can federate. It definitely works with email, even though a large part of the network is from Google. All we need is a federated protocol (which AFAIK is already even required by GDPR).

That is true, I’ve looked at Twitter and went “how is something so basic in functionality not an open standard?”. Although it’s not always as intuitive as email. IRC could’ve extended into something like Discord had it not been so programmer centric. Either way, these people have us by the balls over already established syndication capabilities like RSS, just weighted in their direction(s).

> I’ve looked at Twitter and went “how is something so basic in functionality not an open standard?”.

Mastodon (Activity Pub) is basically the open standard you are looking for here.

Re: Facebook removed the news feed algorithm in an experiment

#66

Post by Nextgrid »

jfengel wrote: post #45
asimpletune wrote: post #12

I 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…

I shudder to think about a system where random people could message me. On Quora, I just turned off that feature. Almost every single message I got was "hi", from somebody who was trying to either sell me crypto or catfish me. Maybe there's a period when a new open messaging system opens you up to just fun new people, but when it grows, spammers and scammers will follow. Glad you enjoyed Facebook before everybody got…

You just need a high enough barrier to entry or real consequences to deter malicious behavior. Spam & scams work because there's no downside; if they had to pay a fee to open an account every time they get banned for spam they'll move on very quickly.

Re: Facebook removed the news feed algorithm in an experiment

#67

Post by godshatter »

selwynii wrote: post #51
mikem170 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putting users into echo chambers is not narrative control? They could have made the algorithm so it showed users brand new different material, or opposing material, or more details, or related material from friends instead of corporations, or from people geographically nearby, or chronological, or let users find their own material and/or build their own feeds. Instead of any of that they show them similar material, l…

But people don't like new material. The top comment mentions people hiding posts from pages they don't follow - alternatively, that's called showing brand new content you haven't seen before. Opposing material suggests a binary, sure that makes some sense in a US centric political spectrum, but what's the opposing viewpoint to my friends photo from hiking last weekend? Geographically nearby could mean my neighbor 5 d…

> The top comment mentions people hiding posts from pages they don't follow - alternatively, that's called showing brand new content you haven't seen before.

These were people who had already been sorted into echo chambers. Turning off the algorithm sent data to them they had already learned to hide. I'd be interested to see how this same experiment fared with completely new user. Maybe we'll run across a new tribe in the Amazon or something so we can try this out.

Re: Facebook removed the news feed algorithm in an experiment

#68

Post by fsflover »

dane-pgp wrote: post #58
fsflover wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suggest that only some servers are paid. Others can be run by yourself or your friends. And they can federate. It definitely works with email, even though a large part of the network is from Google. All we need is a federated protocol (which AFAIK is already even required by GDPR).

> a federated protocol (which AFAIK is already even required by GDPR). You might be thinking of the GDPR's Right to Data Portability[0] which includes "the right to transmit those data to another controller ... by automated means". This should require Facebook to synch the posts you make on their website to another account you hold on a Fediverse node, but unfortunately it doesn't require Facebook to synch content th…

Thank you, I stand corrected. Still, a good step in the right direction.

Re: Facebook removed the news feed algorithm in an experiment

#69

Post by saghm »

selwynii wrote: post #51
mikem170 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putting users into echo chambers is not narrative control? They could have made the algorithm so it showed users brand new different material, or opposing material, or more details, or related material from friends instead of corporations, or from people geographically nearby, or chronological, or let users find their own material and/or build their own feeds. Instead of any of that they show them similar material, l…

But people don't like new material. The top comment mentions people hiding posts from pages they don't follow - alternatively, that's called showing brand new content you haven't seen before. Opposing material suggests a binary, sure that makes some sense in a US centric political spectrum, but what's the opposing viewpoint to my friends photo from hiking last weekend? Geographically nearby could mean my neighbor 5 d…

> Chronological feeds are how you end up with news teams spamming posts every three minutes, and you having to hit the hide button every time

Or you just stop following the spammy ones

Re: Facebook removed the news feed algorithm in an experiment

#70

Post by jaywalk »

moron4hire wrote: post #61
munk-a wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

YT's curation keeps trying to shunt me off into neoconservative conspiracy theory videos, which I never click on, but occasionally auto play if I've left the window in the background. About all I can figure I've done is watch some videos about military-themed multiplayer video games. I don't actually play these games, but sometimes the commentary is funny. Facebook kept trying to sell me an Oculus Quest weeks after I…

You can go into your YouTube watch history and delete videos that you don't want influencing your recommendations. I do this all the time because if I watch something out of the ordinary, my recommendations will be bombarded with similar stuff that I don't want to see. I just wanted to see that one video with the dog doing funny things, damn it!
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