When you have a feed with a million posts in it, they are. There is no practical difference between removing something and putting it on page 5000 where no one will ever see it, or from the other side, moderating away everything you wouldn't recommend.

Likewise, if you have a feed at all, it has to be in some order. Should it show everyone's posts or only people you follow? Should it show posts by popularity or something else? Is "popularity" global, regional, only among people you follow, or using some statistics based on things you yourself have previously liked?

There is no intrinsic default. Everything is a choice.

I remember back in the day when Google+ was just launched. And it had promoted content. Content not from my 'circles' but random other content. I walked out and never looked back.

Of course, Facebook started doing the same.

The thing is, anything from people not explicitly subscribed to should be considered advertorial and the platform should be responsible for all of that content.

I think maybe you shouldn't have a feed with a million posts in it? Like how many friends do you have? And how often do they post?

"We have a million pieces of content to show you, but are not allowed to editorialize" sounds like a constraint that might just spark some interesting UI innovations.

Not being allowed to use the "feed" pattern to shovel content into users' willing gullets based on maximum predicted engagement is the kind of friction that might result in healthier patterns of engagement.

While I agree "There is no intrinsic default. Everything is a choice." and "There is no practical difference between removing something and putting it on page 5000" and similar (see my own recent comments on censorship vs. propaganda):

> Should it show everyone's posts or only people you follow?

Only people (well, accounts) you follow, obviously.

That's what I always thought "following" is *for*, until it became clear that the people running the algorithms had different ideas because they collectively decided both that I must surely want to see other content I didn't ask for and also not see the content I did ask for.

> Should it show posts by popularity or something else? Is "popularity" global, regional, only among people you follow, or using some statistics based on things you yourself have previously liked?

If they want to supply a feed of "Trending in your area", IMO that would be fine, if you ask for it. Choice (user choice) is key.

Early days facebook was simple: 1) You saw posts from all people you were connected to on the platform. 2) In the reverse order they were posted.

I can tell you it was a real p**r when they decided to do an algorithmic recommendation engine - as the experience became way worse. Before I could follow what my buddies were doing, as soon as they made this change the feed became garbage.

The way modern social media platforms are designed, yes they are.

The point is that they don't have to be. You can moderate (scan for inappropriate content, copyrighted content, etc) without needing to have an algorithmic recommendation feed.