It's a long time since I used Facebook on a regular basis, but Instagram is a weak spot where I have had to set the phone to give me just 10 minutes per day, then shut it off. Now I can go days without opening the app, and I usually manage to exit before the time is up.
I can highly recommend the book "Carless People" by Sarah Wynn-Williams if you want to know just how bad it really is/was. Just remember that this is just one side of the story. Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg (no longer at Meta) probably have a different story.
I only use facebook in like once a month and have 50 friends there from school time.
But every-time I log-in, the facebook feed recommends me the most outrageous and triggering posts from total strangers, I don't follow them or my friends don't follow them either.
But facebook is like, you know what, I think you should read this scummy post.
Yeah, they transitioned from a social network to a engagement black hole a while ago. There is a "Feeds" page buried in there somewhere but it's far from default.
Twitter might be full of politically dubious [1] and worse-than-Temu/Wish/etc sponsored posts, but at least it can still default to the "You follow" screen.
It really is a shame. Past the obvious privacy issues, having somewhere you could engage with your people online was genuinely nice. I miss early Facebook.
This is the reason I quit the habit of scrolling through facebook and keep it logged off with no password autofill to add traction. And I know I'm not the only one.
Could it be an algorithm optimizing some badly designed metrics, like "the engagement of active users"? Where making an user inactive also makes the line go up.
On the other hand my mother claims she doesn't get any ragebait.
That is my experience too. I am constantly being recommended ragebait, which is designed to take me into some form of extremism or another. The one small mercy is that most of it is so unsubtle I see it for what it is.
The other stuff it recommends from strangers tends to be moronic, or tries to be emotionally manipulative in some way.
Stanford used to have a "persuasion technology" ("Facebook") class for deliberately maximizing trustworthiness and manipulating users. Interaction and style design are like nonverbal behavior: it's never "apolitical" or "unbiased", unavoidably omnipresent, and has real-world consequences, especially at scale.
It's a long time since I used Facebook on a regular basis, but Instagram is a weak spot where I have had to set the phone to give me just 10 minutes per day, then shut it off. Now I can go days without opening the app, and I usually manage to exit before the time is up.
I can highly recommend the book "Carless People" by Sarah Wynn-Williams if you want to know just how bad it really is/was. Just remember that this is just one side of the story. Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg (no longer at Meta) probably have a different story.
Careless People? I was wondering what not having cars had to do with anything except maybe for people who have PAs/*As or live in Manhattan. ;B
Nothing matters when money is on the line.
How is this news? We knew that already, are we supposed to be shocked and horrified?
Shocked, horrified and apparently binge-watching the trial because it's a "blockbuster": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49355825
This is economist.com but I've seen local news outlet going with similar headline, portraying the trial as a "must-see" show.
Its more horrible than you think, and Zuck should be in prison:
"The Facebook Files" - https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-facebook-files-11631713039
I only use facebook in like once a month and have 50 friends there from school time. But every-time I log-in, the facebook feed recommends me the most outrageous and triggering posts from total strangers, I don't follow them or my friends don't follow them either.
But facebook is like, you know what, I think you should read this scummy post.
Absolute trash place.
Yeah, they transitioned from a social network to a engagement black hole a while ago. There is a "Feeds" page buried in there somewhere but it's far from default.
Twitter might be full of politically dubious [1] and worse-than-Temu/Wish/etc sponsored posts, but at least it can still default to the "You follow" screen.
It really is a shame. Past the obvious privacy issues, having somewhere you could engage with your people online was genuinely nice. I miss early Facebook.
This is the reason I quit the habit of scrolling through facebook and keep it logged off with no password autofill to add traction. And I know I'm not the only one.
Could it be an algorithm optimizing some badly designed metrics, like "the engagement of active users"? Where making an user inactive also makes the line go up.
On the other hand my mother claims she doesn't get any ragebait.
That is my experience too. I am constantly being recommended ragebait, which is designed to take me into some form of extremism or another. The one small mercy is that most of it is so unsubtle I see it for what it is.
The other stuff it recommends from strangers tends to be moronic, or tries to be emotionally manipulative in some way.
Complete brainrot.
What? But that's impossible! Who would have thought?
My hot take is Zuckerberg should be trialed for crimes against humanity.
They grow on people misery, fuck em.
Stanford used to have a "persuasion technology" ("Facebook") class for deliberately maximizing trustworthiness and manipulating users. Interaction and style design are like nonverbal behavior: it's never "apolitical" or "unbiased", unavoidably omnipresent, and has real-world consequences, especially at scale.
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/08/technology/08class.html
( https://archive.is/WXgXt )