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Facebook is cooked

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Re: Facebook is cooked

#661

Post by NewsaHackO »

mrweasel wrote: post #638
bityard wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can confirm. For as long as I've been on facebook (way over a decade now), I've only used it to share pics of my kids/pets to family/friends. I unfollow people who post political and other garbage content. And yet, my feed is nothing but ads and Reels of young women bouncing on trampolines in bikinis.

One thought I've had is that it has to do with your level of engangement. If like me you doesn't really use social media for more than a few minutes a day (in my case I count Snapchat and YouTube Shorts, because that's what I have), then you start seeing some a lot of boobs. It seems like the algorithm panics, because you don't engange with anything much, or because your interests shifts to often and it can't deal wi…

The issue is that they are very smart/subversive; they definitely track the amount of time you spend looking at certain pictures vs. others. So while you may be careful not to directly engage with certain material, if they noticed that you pause a little more at certain pics than others, and there is a pattern in the common topic in the pictures that you pause at, they use that information to create your interest profile.

Re: Facebook is cooked

#663

Post by nephihaha »

Aurornis wrote: post #237
mbo wrote: post #202

My mother is an international flight attendant in her 60s. I recently caught a glimpse of her Facebook and I was shocked to discover a version of the website that seemed to be the platonic ideal of exactly what all the Facebook PMs intended. Her feed was filled with the photos of her friends and coworkers international trips and holidays, posts in groups for planning activities in her most frequented cities. But I di…

This is how my parents' Facebook feeds look, too. And my wife's. And my friends who still use it. I log in a couple times per year and see the same thing. It's nice to catch up with the friends who still use it. One thing I've noticed over the years on HN is that many of the people talking confidently about Facebook also start their posts with "I'm glad I deleted my Facebook account 8 years ago, but..." and then go o…

I did delete a previous Facebook account, but got forced back into it due to work. I don't really use it for friends much now. It is much better as a result although I still see it trying to pull me one direction or another. I would happily delete the entire lot because I don't find it functional.

"There's even an explicit feature to tell the algorithm what you want to see less of: You click the three dots and click "Hide post". They even have useful tools to unfollow people without unfriending them, which is highly useful for those people can't politely disconnect from but whose content you don't want to see. Using these tools even a little bit goes a long way to cleaning up your feed."

I've really never liked that feature. It is what creates echo chambers, because you just get infinite agreemtn. For some reason, Faecebook only tends to show me one individual's posts over others. We're not unfriendly but not good mates. On the other hand thanks to the features you seem to be talking about, I get to hear about bereavements, birthdays, engagements etc days or weeks after they happened which is no use to me.

Re: Facebook is cooked

#664

Post by j-bos »

mrweasel wrote: post #638
bityard wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can confirm. For as long as I've been on facebook (way over a decade now), I've only used it to share pics of my kids/pets to family/friends. I unfollow people who post political and other garbage content. And yet, my feed is nothing but ads and Reels of young women bouncing on trampolines in bikinis.

One thought I've had is that it has to do with your level of engangement. If like me you doesn't really use social media for more than a few minutes a day (in my case I count Snapchat and YouTube Shorts, because that's what I have), then you start seeing some a lot of boobs. It seems like the algorithm panics, because you don't engange with anything much, or because your interests shifts to often and it can't deal wi…

> The more you engange with fitness content, even if it's training programs or how to correctly do certain exercises, platforms like YouTube will start flinging misogynistic content at you and it's incredibly hard to remove.

That explains why out of no where I got reccomendations for some gender conflict greentext channel, I had just that week been looking for lifting techniques.

Re: Facebook is cooked

#665

Post by j-bos »

steezeburger wrote: post #501
eek2121 wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 stuf…

I think they definitely track how long you stay on something as you're scrolling. They show an attractive woman doing your hobby, then it just keeps going.

Yeah it's an optimized skinner box. Any reaction above baseline is sure to be registered and reinforced.

Re: Facebook is cooked

#666

Post by mlrtime »

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…

I did this on reddit to try and get a useful /r/all and it ended up being mostly cats. I never look or vote on cat pictures but by just removing political serial posters, thats what I got.

Re: Facebook is cooked

#667

Post by mlrtime »

fatherwavelet wrote: post #603
ipaddr wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The worst to me is the way people dehumanize other people who don't agree with them. The other side politically doesn't just have different views, they are barely human knuckle draggers. Basically neanderthals, so who cares if they go extinct.

The other side sees you the same way, congrats on being enlightened.

Re: Facebook is cooked

#668

Post by cluckindan »

alfiedotwtf wrote: post #594
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.

It’s crazy (but true) to think that by slowly manipulating someone’s feed, Zuck and Musk could convert people’s religions, political leanings, personal values, etc with little work. In fact, I would be surprised if there was NOT some part of Facebook and Twitter’s admin or support page where a user’s “preferences” could be modified i.e “over the next 8 months, convert the user to a staunch evangelical Christian” etc

FB was always conversion as a service

Re: Facebook is cooked

#669

Post by bradley13 »

I haven't logged into Facebook for many years, but this made me curious. I'm a guy, in my 60s. Looking at my feed, the first two posts are family/friends, the third is some video about a guy I never heard of, the next three f/f, then a political post, etc..

Overall, about 2:1 family/friends vs. crap. That's still too much crap, but no "thirst posts" at all. Maybe those only target younger guys?

Logging out now. I just have no interest in how a cousin I haven't seen in decades has redecorated her bedroom.

Re: Facebook is cooked

#670

Post by scotty79 »

michaelt wrote: post #628
scotty79 wrote: post #616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I'm not interested" and "Don't show posts from this person" is the dowvote button for the algorithm. If you use those functions liberally your feed gets pretty clean and aligned.

Except here on HN, other people take care of the downvoting for me. I only have to reach for the downvote button a few times a year. Whereas on Facebook style algorithmic feeds, you have to "use those functions liberally" and the result is only "pretty" clean.

HN model works, people do downvote for you, if you are just like everybody else here. You indicate that by visiting HN.

In more universal platform such as Facebook you need to indicate who you are by subscribing to specific groups or downvoting some of the content yourself. Just visiting. Facebook is not enoug. Once you signal who you are you also benefit from other people just like you downvoting content you wouldn't like, for you.

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