Facebook's Adam Mosseri on Why You'll See Less Video, More from Friends

Re:Facebook's Adam Mosseri on Why You'll See Less Video, Mor... by mancerayder on Monday January 15, 2018 @01:53PM (#16152518)

This isn't one of those "Why don't they just..." type posts where it's obvious why not. It's a serious question, like why can't they do this? I mean presumably there's some answer where they say that they have tested it and the current scheme increases engagement, or something like that

My answer is: The same reason Chrome took away the ability to stop video autoplay. The same reason the Roku apps are crippled so, for example you can't filter search results in the YouTube app or skip Reuters ads in its app or stop Netflix from showing trailers simply by scrolling.

Because the world of media has transitioned from a come-and-find me to one of I'm-coming-at-your-attention. Kind of like TV used to be. Except now we have personalized coming-at-you.

That's why Facebook can't give you settings to fine tune your feed. It would ruin the coming-at-you.

And ad tech can't have that.

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Re:Facebook's Adam Mosseri on Why You'll See Less Video, Mor... by dgellow on Tuesday January 16, 2018 @04:07AM (#16156780)

> The same reason Chrome took away the ability to stop video autoplay

You have a flag for that: chrome://flags/#autoplay-policy

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Re:Facebook's Adam Mosseri on Why You'll See Less Video, Mor... by unmango on Monday January 15, 2018 @02:13PM (#16152659)

I disagree. Most people wouldn't flip the switch. And by most I mean 99.9% wouldn't even know what the option does.

I think the real answer is: adding such a switch would be very very hard UX-wise. Also imagine what would happen to users that flipped the switch and then never knew how to turn it back off, or whatever. You get the idea.

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Re:Facebook's Adam Mosseri on Why You'll See Less Video, Mor... by mancerayder on Monday January 15, 2018 @02:28PM (#16152758)

I mean, I disagree with your disagreement, but do either of us have data to back ourselves up? The idea that people would or wouldn't do one thing?

I do know one thing: Facebook news has become a source of derision due to its quantifiable impact on divisiveness in the US politically. And a scandal erupted on the topic of Russia funding of political ads.

There's a fantastic article on the general topic of Facebook news here: https://medium.com/the-mission/the-enemy-in-our-feeds-e86511...

With all this mess, it's inconceivable that only .01% of people would toggle these settings.

I won't argue against the idea of the UI being too complicated, that sounds absurd to me although I'm no UI designer.

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