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Most socia media traffic is just bots commenting on Ai slop. And those “real” posts have their humans thinking thousands of people actually give a shit about their selfies. Completely cooked society.
I use it for marketplace. It’s like a little buying and selling community in my area. I figure it’s good for the environment and I make a little cash so I guess Mark Zuckerberg can spy on me all he wants. Weirdo.
I haven’t been on facebook in like 10 years, but sounds like it’s exactly as I picture it.
My Facebook feed looks nothing like that, nor most of the (exaggerated?) complaints in the replies.
Mine is full of content from people I know, local community groups, and pages I follow.
If I scroll long enough to run out of actual local/ subscribed content it will start feeding me other stuff, but it’s usually at least somewhat relevant. If it’s not I just hit the X to say not interested and usually take the opportunity to get off the damn thing for a while.
Facebook does a lot of stupid crap but these sort of lazy observations smack of some nerd pandering to the cool kids about how lame their parents are to get some acceptance or something equality as cringe.
My wife opens Facebook on my phone a lot because shes nosy. Last time I opened my phone and it was already open. I scrolled for about 2 minutes waiting to see if anything would interest me, nothing did. Eventually it came up with a real person’s name and I realised I wasnt on reddit.
Took it fucking ages to do the one thing I would want it to do.
I don’t go on to look at my feed so it stays on my condo group and I can see if someone is trying to contact me
I’ve stayed away from Facebook since forever. It was a principle for me, for a long time.
Then I realised that, at least here where I live, whether I like it or not, if I need to engage with something local (local game group, neighbour discussion, updates from the council etc.) Facebook is actually the better place to do it, because it solves a discovery problem that WhatsApp hasn’t really (and where a lot of local stuff also congregates).
I still deeply dislike it and stay away from it. But on the odd occasion I need/offer something from/to the local area, it’s the only game in town.
Town being south
ofin the UK.Town being south of the UK.
Like underwater in the channel? Or even worse, in France?
What mine shows me is mostly racism and xenophobia. I mean, they know I’m white. Figured they might as well just shoot their shot.
Meanwhile it’s utterly terrible at the one thing it’s supposed to do. I’m got a few old friends and family members on there. Not super close or anything, but the kind of people you’d be vaguely interested in seeing if they had cancer or had babies or anything. Didn’t show me those events at all.
Like, what is even the point of it other than a US far-right psy-op?
YouTube ass title.
Anytime any article or video says that, what ever the subject is get by just fine.
It’s like that journalist law, the one where the answer is always “no” if the headline has a question in it.
Guy opens dumpster, is amazed by the amount of trash in there, writes an article about it.
Wow, really low hanging fruits here.
Idk I thought it was an interesting article. I haven’t logged in since like 08, so I had no idea what it is like now.
Everyone should not know what’s going on on Facebook. Or Instagram, tiktok, etc.
And some rando fucking lemmy/reddit user complains about it.
It’s the cycle of life.
Negative attention is also attention. Dumb shit doesn’t deserve any.
Summary: a opinion piece (with a clickbait title) about how Zuckbook is only a AI wasteland anymore.
Currently banned for “unusual activity”, after arguing with a few right wingers.
I only still have it to maintain contact with a small handful of people.
Given why it was started, is anyone surprised by any of this?
Finally. Facebook and X created AGI. Artificial Gooner Intelligence.
So long Facebook, see you never, until one day I inexplicably need to use your platform to get updates from my kid’s school.
This makes me so fucking angry.
Second to worst for that is the excessive use of Google stuff, including Chromebooks replacing PC labs, and a bunch of G-software
My kid refused. The school district was notified that they needed to do something else, or we would sue. They changed.
That’s what email is for.
In fact, if I unblock them, I still get emails from an elementary school in the Seattle area because 20 years ago I dated somebody with a kid that went there and I subscribed to their event email.
Yes, I tried to unsubscribe for many years.
We need a dumb browser.
This browser doesn’t work for most shit, making it the best browser available for most shit you actually need to do.
That’s a browser I can get behind.
+1 for NetSurf,links and Dillo
and i never heard of W3MAh, dillo brings me back :)
I, uh, misread that word.
+1 for NetSurf, I wrote the Amiga GUI for that.
I missed out on a lot of communication for my kids’ extracurriculars because they were only on Facebook and I don’t use it. It’s infuriating, but less infuriating than the other platforms that a couple of the groups used to attempt to communicate schedules and requirements.
It’s ridiculous that this sort of thing isn’t a solved problem. Schools need to communicate with parents in an effective way, yet none of the platforms I’ve used work well. I’ve been in tech for decades and I still have trouble with their shitty UI.
OTOH you may have missed the communication even if you were on Facebook. These days your feed is just 1/3 the groups you’re in and pages you’ve liked, 1/3 is the “recommended for you” random garbage, and 1/3 is ads. I’ve missed many notifications for events that interested me, they’d pop up a few days after the event actually took place.
Is there a reason an emailing group isn’t a good solution?
They tried that but as spam filters got more prevalent people would miss things.
Then you have the threads where some replies to all and then everyone else replies to all telling them not to reply all.
Each state should have a website that each district can post updates to, and whatever else. It would cost next to nothing. There is no reason to use fb at all, let alone exclusively.
I think it’s a great use for the fediverse. Government institutions have their own mastodon servers.
Yeah no kidding, we should actually start a group on here to get local governments to also post updates to the fediverse, we could even set them up with a program to do it automatically from their fb post or something. Have them post it to mastadon, but then maybe autopost from there to here? Not enough people on here but if it’s automatic it’s no effort on their part, and it would give us a lot of press, as the municipals would say on their sites they post to fb, mastadon, lemmy etc.
I can’t stand how many companies and organizations only have a presence on Facebook. When I reach out to them to ask if there is another way to stay connected I usually get a big NOPE.
It is the asking that matters. If you sound really unhappy it makes maybe a little tiny bit of pressure, but many little bits make a lot
Literally the only reason my family interacts with Facebook. It’s infuriating.
Anger is pointless without action. Either accept the situation as it is, or start regularly attending school board meetings. If you want a policy changed, speak out about it. Don’t just give them vibes either, give them good reasons to change the rules and processes. Have a solution at the ready which is idiot-proof, accessible, and well-supported. Oh, and also, make sure that your clear solution is zero-cost, which is why schools fell into using Facebook and municipal groups used Twitter.
If you want to change the situation, you have to understand why it became the way it is and address the pain points that led here, as well as their pain points that both prevent moving and/or encourage moving. If Facebook suits the needs of the school and the majority of parents, stop being angry and realize that there’s a value in the platform for the purpose.
I don’t have any kids. But I’ve been in similar situations. My previous employment place used Facebook for company comms. I spoke out about it many times. I’ve volunteered for multiple orgs and asked them to move to Nextcloud several times and they just refused. I’ve even turned down volunteer opportunities because they refused to communicate over anything other than Google Chat. No one cares.
I get your frustration. Why don’t they care? Have you asked people directly what benefits they get from Facebook and why they won’t move?
I expect you’ll get the following, based on my experience:
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Exposure - Most people can access Facebook regularly.
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External Accessibility - Facebook can be accessed on multiple devices, by people who are not tech-conscious.
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Reliability - Facebook outages are rare enough to be newsworthy, so no matter what conditions the school or the org is in, it will stay up and be exposed and accessible.
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Internal Accessibility - Everyone in the org, even the people who aren’t regularly involved in marketing or community comms, knows how to post to Facebook.
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Cost - Facebook’s non-monetary costs are subtle and mostly apply to private users. To any organization with a tight budget, Facebook and Twitter are godsends, because they don’t need to have a P&L line that can be scrutinized and audited. I’m sure you understand as a volunteer how important it can be to dodge the accountants while getting messaging out.
Of course there’s also experience, knowledge, and negative inertia built up over time. Until you can cover all 5 of those points at least, you don’t have a viable option. Nextcloud is neat, but who will administer it without pay? Facebook runs the platform without being visibly paid by the school or the org. Facebook has widgets prebuilt to integrate with the website (that the org also outsources administration of). Nextcloud doesn’t natively have that. Facebook is hosted on a massive network of data centers, Nextcloud would have to be run on one mistakenly undiscarded computer acting as a server in the basement. And it would have to be that way because the org doesn’t have the budget approval for AWS or added hosting. And yes, everything will always come back to that cost issue. Until you can beat that, you have nothing.
External Accessibility - Facebook can be accessed on multiple devices, by people who are not tech-conscious.
External accessibility is actually shit. you won’t have access to even read most content without an account.
Why don’t they care?
Because the status quo works for them. Anything else is a you problem.
This answer applies to a broad swath of topics.
I mean, yes. But I was trying to get at why it works and what would be needed to change the status quo. Tbh if Facebook or Twitter could be prosecuted for their role in harm to children or sex trafficking, schools would very quickly be ready for change.
what would be needed to change the status quo.
One of the following:
- widespread media literacy
- competent understanding of technology
- a gun
I’ve recently accepted that the vast majority of people who use technology daily will never question or understand how it works, but will act as if it is indispensable, omniscient, and impenetrable.
If I ask or tell them anything at all, they just get annoyed because they don’t care.
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The Facebook feed is an advanced algorithm that knows a shit ton about what to feed you to keep you engaged. It’s not just the cookies from sites you visit. They track what thumbnails get you to stop scrolling. They track the way a human eye moves and how far your thumb glides across the screen.
Point is, if it’s all scantily clad thirst traps, thats what gets your attention. If you see one, and you stop to take a screenshot for an article you’re writing about how it’s all thirst traps, then every third item will be another thirst trap.
Facebook doesn’t care if you want to see that content. Their goal is to keep your eyes on Facebook. If it makes you mad enough to comment, that’s engagement.
I didn’t read the whole article, so maybe the author addresses this, but what you see on Facebook is a funhouse reflection of your own interests.
If that’s your take and thats their goal: he doesn’t seem very engaged with the content does he?
So clearly in that case it’s a failure.
On the contrary, I’d say it’s a smashing success. First, the author was deeply engaged with Facebook to write the article. Second, everyone who saw this article and discussed the findings was engaged with Facebook even if they didn’t have the app open. You and I are engaged with Facebook right now. And third, many many more people logged into their Facebook to test the findings either out of curiosity, to disprove the theory, or because they are horny goblins thirsting for smut.
They hadn’t used Facebook in years, so this is the default algorithm state — rage bait and bate-bait.
Seems to have worked then.
This is why I love the idea of Cromite and other “antifingerprinting” efforts, not simply blocking but spoofing and plausibly randomizing as many metrics as they can.
I wish there was some way to distribute that to the masses. Like maybe a crazy hardware zero day, and it’s only used to stealth load anti fingerprinting on as many devices as it can.
When I was still using Instagram reels, I was always amazed how quickly the algorithm figured me out. If I hesitated for even a second on a reel, it would amend my next ones immediately. I assume the real trick is comparing it to the average time spent on a reel, everyone spends longer on a wall of text reel, but when I stop on a Linux reel for an extra second, I’m immediately in the 1% for engagement.
I read something years ago about how your phone keyboard tracks your recommended words, it knows if you’re more likely to type apple or Apple, or if you type soup more than average, and any app that gets that data and compares it to the baseline has an instant, in depth profile on you.
So long Facebook, see you never, until one day I inexplicably need to use your platform to get updates from my kid’s school.
Screw any school or PTA that distributes information by Facebook. That should be outlawed.
If only there was a way to send the same communication to a group of people at once, regardless of what platform they use.
Alas, that sort of technology seems impossible. Even in Star Trek they don’t have such a thing.
I deleted Facebook maybe two years ago. One of the last things I saw was a very obviously AI generated image of six or seven soldiers that had lost the same leg and all had it replaced with a prosthetic at exactly the same point, with some caption about “let’s get some likes for our wounded warriors!” Followed by dozens of comments in support, I assume all were bots.
I haven’t really looked at Facebook in a long time but also haven’t deleted my account because I do use Facebook marketplace sometimes.
I just logged in and looked. I actually saw no AI generated content except the few examples that were posted by people I know. I’m sure other’s experiences are different, but the algorithm isn’t feeding me slop for some reason.
