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Facebook is cooked

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Re: Facebook is cooked

#681

Post by spicyusername »

LarsDu88 wrote: post #559
jrmg wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You appear to be saying that this is the content it will just serve to a middle age man who hasn’t used it in a long time by default. You don’t think that’s problematic?

Lets imagine you work at Coca Cola and your job is to sell soda. Soda causes diabetes and tooth decay. Don't you think that's problematic? Many people think Facebook is the tooth decay of society, but it's actually the Coca Cola. And Coca Cola makes a lot of money

Pretty big difference between soda and what's being described, unfortunately.

It'd be a more accurate analogy if we replaced soda with opium.

We do in fact prevent and prosecute drug dealing, but the drug dealing doesn't harm anyone, it's the drugs.

Re: Facebook is cooked

#682

Post by grishka »

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.…

> Once Meta identifies you as male, you will get almost exclusively thirst trap posts no matter what you do.

What if you're gay though. They have to be able to detect that somehow too

Re: Facebook is cooked

#683

Post by codethief »

wedog6 wrote: post #582
jcgrillo wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow they make you use facebook at facebook? That's twisted. That would be like.. idk.. Phillip Morris making you smoke a pack a day.

I believe it was somewhat like that at large cigarette companies in the heyday of smoking. An ashtray on every desk and throughout meeting rooms. Free packs of cigarettes you could grab anywhere in the building + a certain number of packs given to you weekly, with your preferred brand recorded. Some amount of social compulsion to smoke at work and during work related social events.

I hear it still largely is that way, though apparently they do try to avoid smoking in the presence of their pregnant coworkers these days. Progress! :-)

Re: Facebook is cooked

#684

Post by blharr »

BoingBoomTschak wrote: post #615
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

If your tree is so weak that a single breeze can knock it off, why blame the wind? Disclaimer: I hate social media of all kinds, it's just that you're missing the forest.

The breeze is more like a 2 ton harvester expertly engineered to knock your tree down.

Re: Facebook is cooked

#685

Post by justonceokay »

LarsDu88 wrote: post #442

The poster here doesn't seem to grasp how Facebook's algorithms work. He didn't use it for a very long time. The algorithm defaulted to content that appeals what little it knows about him... probably a middle aged man who hasn't clicked on facebook in a very long time. Maybe the first thing he actually did click on was a notification with a picture of an attractive young woman. If he sought out richer stuff on the pl…

“Your algorithm is bad because you are bad” is the 2026 version of Double Predestination.

Re: Facebook is cooked

#686

Post by grishka »

lgl wrote: post #90

The interface... Oh.. the terrible terrible UI on desktop... Switch tabs, come back.. it refreshes everything and you can never go back. Comment threads with 100+ comments with only a "show more" link, which again.. se previous paragraph. See a video, click fullscreen icon. Doesn't go fullscreen, goes to some weird modal window, muted. Click fullscreen again.. And I'm sure I could go on... It's really a sad shell of…

That's what metrics-driven development gets you.

Re: Facebook is cooked

#687

Post by justonceokay »

karmakurtisaani wrote: post #167
Ancapistani wrote: post #163

I use Facebook a lot, but not for the social feed - Marketplace, business pages, and ads. I’ve never interacted with their “shorts” feature, and it’s all young women and girls in as little clothing as they can manage. It’s to the point that I don’t open the Facebook app in public. Ridiculous.

They're selling me the life of a divorced dad as a goal of some kind. It is amusing to an extent.

It’s telling that targeting “men” has a markedly different effect than targeting “father”. In a real way TikTok has an opinionated viewpoint of what is important to men and being a father is not one of them

Re: Facebook is cooked

#688

Post by throwaway290 »

NewsaHackO wrote: post #657
trymas wrote: post #645

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though OC also said: > Another point: I tried very hard to fix this at one point. I went through instagram and hit like on nothing but pottery and parenting videos. For about a week I had a feed that looked like my wife's -- pottery and parenting. And then it reverted. So I guess it depends how active you are? My speculation would be (that would match the article) - if facebook figures out you’re a man, but you don’t…

No, if he's been looking at material that indicates an interest in thirst trap stuff for years, then looks at pottery for a couple of weeks, the algorithm correctly identifies that he isn't really into pottery and corrects back.

Yep. It's far from "it knows you're male => it gives you thirst traps non stop"

But also I will say that curating algo feed to show what you want is annoying and ultra frustrating, whenever it goes off the rails it makes me want to quit.

Re: Facebook is cooked

#689

Post by Melonai »

GorbachevyChase wrote: post #507
boxedemp wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the reasons I always identify as non-binary when asked.

That is a pretty clever algorithm hack. I wonder if you get bombarded with pharmaceutical ads as a consequence.

I also put "non-binary" somewhere on Instagram, and almost every single ad is clothing related, mostly alternative fashion. I'm guessing that's partially aimed at my interests but I almost never buy clothes online, especially not from Instagram. Occasionally I see advertisements for surveys about LGBT people and also sometimes very rarely support sites on how to find queer-friendly therapists, and I bet I could find someone to prescribe something on such a site, but in total I've probably only seen 1-2 ads like that. Never direct pharmaceutical ads though, I do wonder what that would look like...

Re: Facebook is cooked

#690

Post by iteria »

npodbielski wrote: post #644
duxup wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I logged out of facebook years ago only to find out an old friend / former coworker had died. Everyone knew, because of facebook, but not me :( It’s certainly the social hub for some groups.

People with those kind of arguments always get from response that if you were not trying to keep in touch with this friend personally then it was not truly a friend. Facebook friends does not equal real life friend.

I literally didn't learn that my own grandmother(I guess great aunt) had died until I happen to return home on the day the funeral was occurring. Everyone just assumed I knew because of Facebook and was there because of Facebook.

Sometimes it's not about closeness. It's about people's expectations about how to communicate. My cousin was in no place to do anything but post to Facebook and then collapse. My sister helped him, but didn't think to tell me because you know Facebook. I live 4 hours away so I wouldn't have learned by osmosis.

I have several stories of learning about deaths in the family way after the fact because my family is chronically on Facebook and I'm not. They all live in my hometown and it just doesn't occur to them to actually communicate with members like me who don't live there.

This is basically why I haven't deleted my Facebook even if I don't often log in.

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