Just now, E Rocc said:

The thing is everyone has a voice now, if they choose to use it.   The DBU's, the cynical Xers, the "PC" millennials, the "woke" Z's, and as the pendulum continues to swing, the youngest bunch.   My 14 year daughter is way more pro-DJT than me, and we are learning she is far from alone.     Just like happened with the people born in the late 50s and early 60s, when the "progressives" go to far, there is a backlash.  To be fair the same often happens with the right.

 

You know that I don't shy away from political discussions online.

 

But that's not what I want from FB.  I don't want it to be UO Current Events nor the comment sections at WaPo, The Atlantic, or National Review.  Because of this, I routinely "snooze for 30 days" people posting virtue-signaling or troll-bait political memes there.  But I keep seeing them.  I have been unable to get the algorithm to understand that I don't want that content there.

 

I think, but cannot prove, that FB has algorithmically flagged me as being continually interested in politics because I follow and interact with local politicians and political pages, like the City of Akron Mayor's Office page.  The difference is that a lot of local political pages share real, relevant information for daily use--the obvious one over the last three days in northeast Ohio has been snow plowing and salting updates with the recent lake effect snow, but there have been plenty of others.  Another page (private nonprofit rather than official government) involves school choice and updates on Ohio's EdChoice and SGO programs (e.g., the Angel Scholarship Fund in Cleveland).  Maybe I liked or otherwise amplified a political post supporting the Akron-Summit County Public Library levy.  Somehow the hundred-billion-dollar algorithm still hasn't figured out that that doesn't mean I want to see all the "pendulum swing" national or international political content there.

53 minutes ago, Gramarye said:

 

You know that I don't shy away from political discussions online.

 

But that's not what I want from FB.  I don't want it to be UO Current Events nor the comment sections at WaPo, The Atlantic, or National Review.  Because of this, I routinely "snooze for 30 days" people posting virtue-signaling or troll-bait political memes there.  But I keep seeing them.  I have been unable to get the algorithm to understand that I don't want that content there.

 

I think, but cannot prove, that FB has algorithmically flagged me as being continually interested in politics because I follow and interact with local politicians and political pages, like the City of Akron Mayor's Office page.  The difference is that a lot of local political pages share real, relevant information for daily use--the obvious one over the last three days in northeast Ohio has been snow plowing and salting updates with the recent lake effect snow, but there have been plenty of others.  Another page (private nonprofit rather than official government) involves school choice and updates on Ohio's EdChoice and SGO programs (e.g., the Angel Scholarship Fund in Cleveland).  Maybe I liked or otherwise amplified a political post supporting the Akron-Summit County Public Library levy.  Somehow the hundred-billion-dollar algorithm still hasn't figured out that that doesn't mean I want to see all the "pendulum swing" national or international political content there.

 

I do the bulk of my FB political posting in a couple private groups for multiple reasons.   The political stuff I get on my feed is largely limited to those groups.   Like you, it's not somewhere I go for political content anymore.   That's X.

 

My own page is mostly my kid, memory shares from the past (much of which is her) and various smartasseries.    My pinned song is even the apropos Lillington's song.

Honestly, folks, what are you doing on Facebook and Twitter at all?

 

They are both cesspools on every conceivable level, even before the brainrotted took over, and add no value any longer.

 

It's over. It's BEEN over.

 

26 minutes ago, TBideon said:

Honestly, folks, what are you doing on Facebook and Twitter at all?

 

They are both cesspools on every conceivable level, even before the brainrotted took over, and add no value any longer.

 

It's over. It's BEEN over.

 

 

Yeah, for years I would get "suggested posts" on Facebook that were just Anti-Trans bs or some very bad AI generated image of soldiers crying around a cake saying "for my birthday I just want one wish" and then 100k Likes on it with comments like "thank you for your service". I tried the repeatedly block those pages and tell Facebook I didn't want to see it, but it just kept coming onto feed. It's pretty much all boomers and conservative Gen X or millennials on Facebook now. 

 

Meta has been feeding me conservative slop for years. Instagram is the harder one to quit because it's become the default for following local businesses.

 

The move to decentralized social media has started, and it's going to eventually succeed. We need to leave the legacy media companies and use a system (similar to email) where you can interact with people on different platforms regardless of which one you use. No one company should be able to influence politics like Facebook and Twitter can.

 

My biggest hope is that the EU starts enforcing laws against these tech giants and it has ripple effects breaking them up in the US 

1 minute ago, ryanlammi said:

My biggest hope is that the EU starts enforcing laws against these tech giants and it has ripple effects breaking them up in the US 

 

Better yet, they begin to undercut the EUs draconian laws and it either decentralizes or breaks up.  I'm surprised the Visegrad nations haven't bailed already.

43 minutes ago, TBideon said:

Honestly, folks, what are you doing on Facebook and Twitter at all?

 

They are both cesspools on every conceivable level, even before the brainrotted took over, and add no value any longer.

 

It's over. It's BEEN over.

 

People say online bulletin boards are "over," too, yet here we are!

 

And I've never had a Xitter account, and I've generally disapproved of Facebook's moves to imitate Xitter's addictive doomscrolling business model.

 

But Facebook does offer more than that.  Because of its trust thermocline issues, fewer and fewer people are choosing to create real human content there, which compounds the effect that its algorithm and even site layout, driven by its business model, now also disincentivizes people from prioritizing that kind of slower-build activity, which gradually leads to network effects working in reverse and out-of-touch solutions like having AI personalities engage with content to create the impression of engagement (on the theory that engagement drives engagement in an ouroboros of profit).  But I still do use it for its original purpose--sharing my life with friends and reaching out to them about theirs, particularly friends in other places I've lived over my life that I'd otherwise have lost touch with completely--and because of that, I'll likely be one of the last off the platform when it collapses and one of the minority who are likely to miss it.

 

8 minutes ago, ryanlammi said:

My biggest hope is that the EU starts enforcing laws against these tech giants and it has ripple effects breaking them up in the US 

 

I wouldn't get your hopes up.  Companies form international subsidiaries all the time to deal with different regulatory environments.  If they have to essentially separate Europe from America in social media, well, we've already learned how to do that from China.  Any European attempt to enforce globalism on social media will likely lead in practice to enforcing nationalism, or at least super-regionalism, on it.

Not globalism 😱

2 hours ago, Gramarye said:

But I still do use it for its original purpose--sharing my life with friends and reaching out to them about theirs, particularly friends in other places I've lived over my life that I'd otherwise have lost touch with completely--and because of that, I'll likely be one of the last off the platform when it collapses and one of the minority who are likely to miss it.

 

Same.   It's likely better for reconnecting than connecting, but I've made a few connections there.   Sometimes contending with the same trolls.

 

I have to admit getting a kick out of HS acquaintances clicking the like on my Ardyn related content and probably wondering "How the <bleep> did that happen?".   Semi conversely, it allows me to let Holly's friends and acquaintances know how our kid is doing.

Edited January 8Jan 8 by E Rocc

Facebook puts way too much emphasis on high school. If you went to a bad one it's a constant reminder of how your parents being bad at site selection can negatively affect your future. We weren't even poor so they didn't have that excuse. Sitting there watching your friend box fill up with junkies and face tattoos. 

6 hours ago, E Rocc said:

 

"Community notes" is more than that because one group of "fact checkers" does not have preferred status and explanations are attached.   The notes are aggregated as well.

 

It works better than semi-anonymous checkers, in my not so humble opinion.

 

The purpose of this change is to move truth firmly into "he-said, she-said" territory.  This move allows BS and intentional misinformation to thrive.  History has shown that this is a classic tactic of authoritarian movements worldwide.  Destroy all independent sources of information that might challenge the ruler(ie academics, journalists, experts), then fill the void with whatever misinformation supports the leader's agenda.  Even those who don't fall for the lies slowly tire and become disengaged.

Here's a good article from a writer I generally trust. Part of the issue with their fact checking is that it is hard work and will always be accused of bias, and they were very bad at it.

 

https://www.techdirt.com/2025/01/08/the-good-the-bad-and-the-stupid-in-metas-new-content-moderation-policies/

 

Of course the same can be said about community fact checkers.

Facebook and X are dying and are both awful because of the crazy right wing conspiracy theorist types. Bluesky is the only alternative that actually allows for civil discourse for anyone regardless of their politics. Bluesky does an excellent job of keeping off the bots and the dangerous misinformation all over FB, Threads and especially X. Bluesky also gives all control to the user to block and control content. It’s an amazing site and is growing immensely and will surpass 30 million users this month. It’s so refreshing to not have to sift through the awful and hateful rhetoric on the other social media platforms. IMO conservative right wing social media sites will never thrive because they don’t have much worth while to say, only want to fight and can’t survive financially.

Edited January 8Jan 8 by Tdianzo

27 minutes ago, X said:

The purpose of this change is to move truth firmly into "he-said, she-said" territory.

 

Perhaps, but that's an improvement over the "we-said, you-shut-up" territory that characterized most content moderation decision-making teams for the last 5-10 years, and likely still will notwithstanding the fact that Facebook may partially defang them.

 

32 minutes ago, X said:

History has shown that this is a classic tactic of authoritarian movements worldwide.  Destroy all independent sources of information that might challenge the ruler(ie academics, journalists, experts), then fill the void with whatever misinformation supports the leader's agenda.  Even those who don't fall for the lies slowly tire and become disengaged.

 

Which academics, which journalists, and which experts?  The academics that argued that COVID lockdowns were harmful and were driven into professional exile and would have remained there but for Trump's win in November?  Journalists like Bari Weiss, Matt Taibbi, and Michael Shellenberger, or the other journalists who tried (with varying levels of success) to drive those heterodox journalists from all establishment publications for breaching the unstated code of the dominant wing of the profession?

 

Why should we respect "journalists" and "experts" when the prevailing archetype for someone who checks both boxes is Melissa Click, the journalism professor who called for some "muscle" to censor a journalist who wasn't supporting the progressive narrative?

 

The reason fact-checking was (and is) such a joke is that it was (and is) mostly bias-checking.

Facebook really could have been great, but they just can't seem to help themselves. I joined in 2009 when we moved from Ohio to New England (then later back to Ohio) as a way to keep in touch with family and friends I wouldn't necessarily see or talk to otherwise. I did post a lot of "check out this great restaurant" or "look at this project I'm working on" type posts relatively early on, as did a lot of people.

Then I think they started getting greedy. They've constantly made it harder and harder to see a clean, chronological feed of only people and pages your follow, as @Gramarye noted above. That's around the same time the ads started getting creepy and intrusive. And I started seeing lots of political posts, which no doubt engage a lot of people but aren't what I'm on Facebook to see. As seems to be the case with most of my friends, I rarely post anything anymore. I don't want Facebook doing any additional data mining to sell more ads, and I don't feel like dealing with hyper-partisan responses on non political posts from people who clearly follow nothing but political pages (boomer uncles).

The main I really use Facebook anymore are groups, which I still feel are largely inferior to traditional forums (ahem) but do have the advantage of a much larger user base - especially geographically. The only way to really know what's happening around Granville anymore is to follow the most popular community Facebook page, since local media has declined so badly. I follow a few regional mountain biking pages for trail updates and such. I also follow a few local businesses, since that seems to be where they most actively post updates. Those sorts of things are what makes up the bulk of my feed lately, and that's approaching unusable with the AI slop Facebook keeps trying to shovel in there to keep up the engagement.

29 minutes ago, Tdianzo said:

Facebook and X are dying and are both awful because of the crazy right wing conspiracy theorist types. Bluesky is the only alternative that actually allows for civil discourse for anyone regardless of their politics. Bluesky does an excellent job of keeping off the bots and the dangerous misinformation all over FB, Threads and especially X. Bluesky also gives all control to the user to block and control content. It’s an amazing site and is growing immensely and will surpass 30 million users this month. It’s so refreshing to not have to sift through the awful and hateful rhetoric on the other social media platforms. IMO conservative right wing social media sites will never thrive because they don’t have much worth while to say, only want to fight and can’t survive financially.

 

Keeping out "dangerous misinformation" is how the social control advocates twisted the virus narrative to suit their agenda.   The very phrase, along with the slightly more honest "malinformation" (true things they don't want people to know) epitomizes the attempts to stifle dissenting viewpoints.   It was amazing how I had posts from March of 2020 suddenly reappear when the lab leak theory went from conspiracy to possible to probable.

 

X is still doing very well despite the claims of those who disapprove of free speech.    

1 hour ago, X said:

 

The purpose of this change is to move truth firmly into "he-said, she-said" territory.  This move allows BS and intentional misinformation to thrive.  History has shown that this is a classic tactic of authoritarian movements worldwide.  Destroy all independent sources of information that might challenge the ruler(ie academics, journalists, experts), then fill the void with whatever misinformation supports the leader's agenda.  Even those who don't fall for the lies slowly tire and become disengaged.

 

Not only do "progressive" politicians regularly post on X, but so do Iranian, Chinese, and EU officials.  Free speech is often toxic, but stifling speech is worse.

 

Starting your paragraph with the word "destroy" describes pretty much exactly what the left and other statists tried to do.

 

X did to the social media narrative what bloggers like Matt Drudge and various fora did to the mainstream media.    It happened quicker because it was bought by someone who could afford it and found the purpose important.

30 minutes ago, mrCharlie said:

Then I think they started getting greedy. They've constantly made it harder and harder to see a clean, chronological feed of only people and pages your follow, as @Gramarye noted above. That's around the same time the ads started getting creepy and intrusive. And I started seeing lots of political posts, which no doubt engage a lot of people but aren't what I'm on Facebook to see. As seems to be the case with most of my friends, I rarely post anything anymore. I don't want Facebook doing any additional data mining to sell more ads, and I don't feel like dealing with hyper-partisan responses on non political posts from people who clearly follow nothing but political pages (boomer uncles).

 

This, writ large, is a great illustration of the impending trust thermocline issue that I warned about: Because users don't like what FB has done with their data since maybe around 2015-2016, they're creating less "good" data for FB, i.e., real human content.  Since FB's model now demands an endless stream of content, they're filling in the gap with lower-quality, higher-quantity options like memes, politics, and (now) AI content.

 

I'm one of the increasingly rare users who doesn't feel this way; I still post on FB like it's 2005 and I needed a .edu e-mail address to sign up and I thought I was awesome for having 40 friends and was jealous of the popular girls for having 200+.  I even occasionally, just for old time's sake and as a call-out to other old-timers who recognize it, post in the old status-update format that always began "{User} is _______."

 

But as fewer people use it as a default way of updating friends and acquaintances about their lives, it's less and less useful to those of us who still use it for that original purpose and wish others would, too (and wish the platform would go back to incentivizing that and making it convenient).  The issue is that they want content that will generate thousands or tens of thousands of impressions, not dozens or hundreds.  Even developments that are really big to me and my friend group, e.g., our weddings, the births of our children, our biggest vacation of any given year, graduations, baptisms, First Communions, Christmas and Easter gatherings, job changes, moving to a new city, major fitness milestones, etc., don't generate that kind of mass engagement, so the algorithm is less inclined to serve it up than something with wider but shallower appeal.  But also, now, the trust issues compound that: people now often don't even want to share those details on the platform, let alone have any confidence that their friends will actually see them.

27 minutes ago, E Rocc said:

 

Keeping out "dangerous misinformation" is how the social control advocates twisted the virus narrative to suit their agenda.   The very phrase, along with the slightly more honest "malinformation" (true things they don't want people to know) epitomizes the attempts to stifle dissenting viewpoints.   It was amazing how I had posts from March of 2020 suddenly reappear when the lab leak theory went from conspiracy to possible to probable.

 

X is still doing very well despite the claims of those who disapprove of free speech.    

You can believe whatever you want regarding what is dangerous misinformation or conspiracy theories and you should join a social media site that allows for that type of dialogue but you will not feel welcomed or happy on Bluesky which is why it’s so amazing. Bluesky is what Twitter/X was always intended to be until the crazies were allowed to join. You would quickly be relegated to the other conspiracy theorists and right wing conservative members and would fast become bored because of the reasons I mentioned in my first post about any right wing conservative social media site. Also, you are wrong about X which still has millions of users but are in a dire state of free fall with both users and their financial position and are on the verge of bankruptcy and it will only get worse as the toxic Trump administration takes over. So please, don’t join Bluesky.

Edited January 8Jan 8 by Tdianzo

32 minutes ago, Tdianzo said:

You can believe whatever you want regarding what is dangerous misinformation or conspiracy theories and you should join a social media site that allows for that type of dialogue but you will not feel welcomed or happy on Bluesky which is why it’s so amazing. Bluesky is what Twitter/X was always intended to be until the crazies were allowed to join. You would quickly be relegated to the other conspiracy theorists and right wing conservative members and would fast become bored because of the reasons I mentioned in my first post about any right wing conservative social media site. Also, you are wrong about X which still has millions of users but are in a dire state of free fall with both users and their financial position and are on the verge of bankruptcy and it will only get worse as the toxic Trump administration takes over. So please, don’t join Bluesky.

 

All you are saying here is you prefer echo chambers.  That's no way to learn anything or grow.

Social media is causing the collapse of Western democracies. It's as if Ruzzian or Chinese propaganda planes are dropping leaflets with misinformation over our cities. Every single second.

35 minutes ago, E Rocc said:

 

All you are saying here is you prefer echo chambers.  That's no way to learn anything or grow.

You understand it to be that because of your limited ability to make the distinction between fact and fiction much like your mango-hued leader. 

That's not nice.

 

However, E Rocc, sorry man, but conservative brainrot has completely ruined social media. All their endless ugliness and proud ignorance just kills those sites. I never liked Twitter but absolutely loved Facebook in 2003 when I went to Northwestern. It was such an improvement of MySpace and Friendster, AOL IM too, and full of good vibes and intentions. A very idyllic time with social media being a positive or at least a fun distraction.

 

These days, Facebook is so filled with spam, AI bots, and never-ending MAGA proselytization rage. There's no point in being on, save for keeping in touch with family/friends. The rest is just complete garbage full of fake accounts and rotten people.

8 minutes ago, TBideon said:

That's not nice.

 

However, E Rocc, sorry man, but conservative brainrot has completely ruined social media. All their endless ugliness and proud ignorance just kills those sites. I never liked Twitter but absolutely loved Facebook in 2003 when I went to Northwestern. It was such an improvement of MySpace and Friendster, AOL IM too, and full of good vibes and intentions. A very idyllic time with social media being a positive or at least a fun distraction.

 

These days, Facebook is so filled with spam, AI bots, and never-ending MAGA proselytization rage. There's no point in being on, save for keeping in touch with family/friends. The rest is just complete garbage full of fake accounts and rotten people.

 

I'm not arguing the spam and AI bots, but seriously, "never-ending MAGA proselytization?"  I see more of the opposite.  Maybe FB knows that rage drives eyeballs and so, if it serves political content at all, serves me secularist DEI virtue-signaling and serves MAGA content to people on the other side.  I've snoozed/closed multiple posts just in the past two days that were bog standard "are you a censorious progressive culture warrior or a bigot?" call-outs.

So Facebook is basically "working" on @Gramarye and @TBideon correctly.  And by that, I mean, terribly.

 

Just an FYI, I'm in the "I see MAGA stuff" camp like @TBideon but I just check FB for birthdays.

6 minutes ago, ColDayMan said:

So Facebook is basically "working" on @Gramarye and @TBideon correctly.  And by that, I mean, terribly.

 

It's definitely frustrating.  But whereas I used to engage with that kind of content, just as I did here in the PC thread, it's been a long while in both places.  Now I just close or snooze (depending on whether it's a Page or a friend), as applicable.  Yet somehow the algorithm hasn't gotten the hint.

 

11 minutes ago, Gramarye said:

 

I'm not arguing the spam and AI bots, but seriously, "never-ending MAGA proselytization?"  I see more of the opposite.  Maybe FB knows that rage drives eyeballs and so, if it serves political content at all, serves me secularist DEI virtue-signaling and serves MAGA content to people on the other side.  I've snoozed/closed multiple posts just in the past two days that were bog standard "are you a censorious progressive culture warrior or a bigot?" call-outs.

I deactivated Facebook during Trump's first reign but really should have during Obama's terms. I don't know anything about algorithms, just that there was a lot of racist and ugly anti-liberal comments whenever people posted articles, and it got worse by the month. Whatever the f "DEI virtue-signaling" is, it was certainly benign compared to the rage and chaos on the other side.

 

And now it's 2025, and the maniacs are in charge with normal people paying the consequences. Social media and its echo chambers of hate are a big part of that. Dangerous days ahead.

1 minute ago, TBideon said:

And now it's 2025, and the maniacs are in charge with normal people paying the consequences. Social media and its echo chambers of hate are a big part of that. Dangerous days ahead.

 

I'd agree that the maniacs are in charge, but not in the way you probably mean.  You sound like you mean the people in Washington.  The real maniacs are the whatever hairbrained tech bros, whether in San Francisco or wherever else people with real decisionmaking power over the platform live now, who thought that opening the door to AI-generated user accounts would be a good idea.  As if the opportunity to socialize with chatbots will save social media that fails to draw back real people to socialize with.  Or as if getting 100 likes on a post from bot users will be the same in any relevant way as getting 100 likes from real people.

Not a fan of that nonsense either. 

1 hour ago, E Rocc said:

 

All you are saying here is you prefer echo chambers.  That's no way to learn anything or grow.

Everytime I read X its just an echochamber of garbage. So whats your point?

7 hours ago, Gramarye said:

If I could pay $150/yr to subscribe to "Facebook Classic Premium" that would be an ad-free version of old Facebook, where the content is almost exclusively from my friends (regardless if I haven't interacted with content from them for a while), Groups, Pages, and Events, and if that means my feed is not an endless zombiescroll and instead would allow me the satisfaction of a logical daily endpoint, I'd pay it.

 

FB was a client back in 2013? when they changed the feed from primarily friend group content to whatever awful zoo it is now. That change was all Mark Z's idea too....nobody else at FB wanted this and there was an uproar internally, but he runs the show. 

 

I am sure there are a lot of other examples of ruining a product in the name of maximizing revenue.    

4 hours ago, GCrites said:

Facebook puts way too much emphasis on high school. If you went to a bad one it's a constant reminder of how your parents being bad at site selection can negatively affect your future. We weren't even poor so they didn't have that excuse. Sitting there watching your friend box fill up with junkies and face tattoos. 

 

Haha FB is totally high school 2.0. And it's also how I realized the teachers at my school did a wretched job of teaching my friends that the President doesn't control gas prices, that there is actually a difference between the words "their, there and they're" and that the word "loser" isn't spelled "looser." 

 

** Also if your profile pic is a selfie taken at the gym, you definitely still live within 5 miles of our hometown. 

13 hours ago, TheCOV said:

Everytime I read X its just an echochamber of garbage. So whats your point?

 

That's because you want it to be.   The algorithm reinforces what you click on and who you follow.

1 hour ago, E Rocc said:

 

That's because you want it to be.   The algorithm reinforces what you click on and who you follow.

 

Very true.  I actually see very little political content on FB because I'm very vigorous with the "Hide all from _______" option in the hamburger menu on every post.  My feed is pretty much guitars, bikes, old historic city pictures- stuff from groups I follow, and a smattering of posts from friends, and finally ads/AI/viral junk.  If any of that is for something obnoxious, I make sure to downvote it.  Any AI content (that I can tell) gets the poster banned from my feed entirely- my slogan is "AI and bye!"  Ditto anything that seems like misinfo.  If actual friends get too obnoxious with the politics I just unfollow (without unfriending) them.  That goes for both MAGA friends, and sometimes even friends I actually politically agree with.

https://www.platformer.news/meta-new-trans-guidelines-hate-speech/

4 minutes ago, DarkandStormy said:

https://www.platformer.news/meta-new-trans-guidelines-hate-speech/

 

One of my favorite science fiction authors (Lois McMaster Bujold) has hermaphrodite characters that she portrays very sympathetically.   Their preferred pronoun is 'it".  Which isn't seen as remotely offensive.

 

Individuals can decide what words they object to, and on FB so can group admins.   A general ban is overkill.

 

If you want to convince people, you have to know (and let them say) what they are thinking.

Respectable reflection from Nate Silver on the rise and fall of the "fact checkers" at Facebook:

 

https://www.natesilver.net/p/the-rise-and-fall-of-fact-checking?