I assume users want this content. I never see news, politics, etc because I’m not interested and FB has learnt I won’t engage in it.
I’m not trying to say this makes me good or bad or special. I’m saying that they use feedback each user individually and it seems allot of people want that stuff.
It has actually become a bad user experience.
Honestly people like to say "x social media sucks" but in actuality it's far simpler than that : people suck in general. Only now you get to see it for yourself at a more general level as opposed to anecdotal experience.
Would love to hear how you (and your cohort) would tackle these issues.
I just finished Jill Lepore's These Truths. Terrific. Tracks how our nation transformed from seekers of truth (for all our faults) to anti-truth.
The transition period from newspapers to mobile mediums as people's primary source of news is very interesting. Sure, everyone has been lamenting this ad nauseum. But somehow Lepore's explanation is just so tight and focused.
And yet. I haven't seen or heard any ideas or strategies for what's next.
Fills me with dread.
No one is saying that other Web actors can't do all these things, or that people who want it can't find it; just Facebook. Because they're a monopoly and the usual rules don't apply to them. When you make the market, you can't defend yourself with free market principles.
Maybe this is just me being a late adopter of facebook (2012 or 2013 here), but... when was this magical time without politics and news? Was this in the time of game requests? Was there really no one sharing news stories back then? No groups discussing religion and philosophy and current events? No one organizing protests? No one commenting about how they disapproved of a lifestyle or couldn't ever harm a little, innocent unborn baby? Really??
I'm gonna guess you simply didn't see it from friends and family back then or didn't consider some of it to be political. It could be that people themselves share it more often now, but if that's the case, that's simply because the world has changed into such a world. But don't get me wrong, this isn't something facebook has done, as some folks have always been political and some loud about it.
Before occupy Wall Street, maybe? Or before the recession? When it was just a college thing, it was great. I distinctly remember facebook during college being the same content makeup I get today when actually talking to friends. Photos from the weekend, conversation, invitations to the beach, jokes, etc. And you got these big albums, so it wasn’t IG’s carefully curated perfect-life-looking shininess.
> Really??
Yeah.
> I'm gonna guess you simply didn't see it
I think you joined after the good years.
Yeah, it always seemed like it wasn't worth it since I really didn't have many friends to speak of. I mostly joined to keep touch with family when moving overseas. I'm not sure about 'after the good years' since I've honestly met some wonderful folks and had always seen people act out the worst part of facebook in real life - racism, anti-gay, and anti-poor sentiments haven't been strangers to Indiana's small-to-medium towns. You know, making it hard to believe it wasn't on facebook too.
Besides, I don't know about everyone else, but a fair chunk of my FB feed was pretty much people getting outraged by (or trying to discredit) fake news, hyperbolic news, or disinformation. Because that's the stuff that goes viral.
Eliminate all news, politics, and other public policy groups and apps. Return to being just a way to connect with friends and family.
No one needs to get their news from Facebook. There are plenty of other sites on the Web for that. Same for all these other "engagement" services.
Of course, this would cut their market cap to, oh, $100B or so. Boo-hoo.