Re:Facebook tries hiding Like counts to fight envy
by domnomnom on Friday September 27, 2019 @01:45AM
(#21088800)
It's pretty funny how you imply I'm saying facebook is evil because it makes me feel good - pretty ridiculous statements in light of what I've actually said. I was just saying facebook is a business. It seems you have a lot to prove though. Sorry, I don't buy that "It was solely to see if we could make people feel less self conscious by decreasing social comparison" is the main goal. It seems like a pretty direct way of driving user engagement, seeing as you're literally removing an inhibitor of engagement.
Re:Facebook tries hiding Like counts to fight envy
by authoritarian on Friday September 27, 2019 @09:54AM
(#21091994)
>It's pretty funny how you imply I'm saying facebook is evil because it makes me feel good
Yup, I've found its a typical reaction from Facebook employees on this site to attack commenters and rationalize any time negative critiques are brought up, although the extreme defensiveness is pretty telling
Re:Facebook tries hiding Like counts to fight envy
by bredren on Friday September 27, 2019 @02:51PM
(#21095091)
This trail reminds me of the "are we the baddies" comedy routine.
Re:Facebook tries hiding Like counts to fight envy
by nindalf on Friday September 27, 2019 @03:55AM
(#21089519)
It is difficult to predict how people react with limited information. I think hypothesis for this change was "well being might improve but we're not sure" and at the same time "engagement might drop because there might be folks out there who enjoy collecting likes and this makes it less fun but we're not sure". And it's hard to tell what the results will look like based purely on speculation.
I don't know what makes you certain you know the answers even though you've looked at none of the data. Do you have some other sources?
However, I think I was pretty clear.
"It was solely to see if we could make people feel less self conscious by decreasing social comparison." - the main goal
"Our hope was to decrease the pressure normal people feel about sharing their lives with their friends and family." - if we achieve the main goal, this ~might~ happen.
"We thought this might improve some long-term metrics" - on the off chance this happens, we ~might~ benefit in the long run.
Is this really different from "I suspect that the recent trend of social media platforms hiding engagement metrics has less to do with fighting 'envy' than simply allowing for more authentic looking proliferation of promoted content" ?
I think so. Seems like a pretty indirect way of driving user engagement.