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Oh Globbits!

So I guess Facebook's algorithm works by whatever is trending, because I get several ads a day for Disney+ The Acolyte

Do you think someone should tell them?

I assume this time next week I'll be flooded with ads for the RFJ Junior campaign.

My daughter says this. Disturbingly I don't think she knows what the word demure means.

 insaniak wrote:

Bran Dawri wrote:
Social media never was very useful to begin with.

It really, really was. It's easy to judge social media by the standard of today's cesspool offerings, but back in its day Facebook let me get back in touch with quite a few friends I had lost contact with over the years, and made it a lot easier to keep in touch with family spread over several continents. It was useful for sharing news, planning get-togethers, and occasionally coming across interesting things that I otherwise might not have seen.

This. Back before* it was monetized** when you had to know someone to add them, and it just gave you a feed of what your friends posted, it was great.

My biggest bug-bear now is that it often doesn't show you event invitations, so I've missed events that weren't communicated to me directly since it used to be a safe assumption that if you invited someone to an event, they'd get a notification. My feed must now be more than 50% posts from people or groups I've never interacted with.


*I appreciate that makes me old, since Facebook apparently peaked about 10 years ago. Younger folk finding it now (if they even use it) will never have seen it working.

** I've found the culprit.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
So I guess Facebook's algorithm works by whatever is trending, because I get several ads a day for Disney+ The Acolyte

Do you think someone should tell them?

I assume this time next week I'll be flooded with ads for the RFJ Junior campaign.

Nothing about their algorithm makes sense. My feed is spammed by vegan propaganda posting, and I've made it abundantly clear how I feel about veganism. IN THOSE POSTS, no less. Luckily it seems that some carnivore-centric content is starting to filter in so it's not a lost cause yet...

Yeah I've had groups where I click on posts and interact with them then suddenly it stops showing me activity from that group and shows another. So the group carries on but as far as my feed is concerned its dead - so you have to go find it in their interface and such.

It's like a lot of systems now - its not built for YOUR use its built for whatever the executive wants in the company office and chances are what they want is whatever buzzword they can think of coupled to whatever a random algorithm code spews out.

And as I've said before, I think we've gone from when algorithms actually looked at human behaviour to ones which, at best, are so heavily infected with spambots it can't tell human from machine; to systems that dominate human behaviour so much that its self-reinforcing (algorithm shows you X so you interact with X so it thinks X is all people want so all it shows is X)

Do we realistically think that Social Media has had its day due to constant engakification?

Instagram is getting really bad for “slightly misspelled” clone accounts, lifting content I am interested in (Doggos. It’s Doggos. I love me some Doggos. And once Goober has manifested, I might start a Dakka Pet’s Thread), using a slight variation of the account name, and promoting utter crap like the Tesla Cyberskip.

Oh its not had its day; many of us griping are still using it. However I think its clear that its not what was originally drew us to them and there ARE avenues for both the SM systems collapsing due to mismanagement and also for competition to rise up.

The stickier issue is that some platforms, like Twitter; also became really useful to governments and other powerful bodies. So SM sites being killed off is trickier than it might otherwise be. They have a lot of money and big names invested into them.

In a way they are like the banks of the internet. So interconnected its hard to crush them; but they very much can still crash and burn (in spectacular disastrous fashion I'm sure)

 Just Tony wrote:


Nothing about their algorithm makes sense. My feed is spammed by vegan propaganda posting, and I've made it abundantly clear how I feel about veganism. IN THOSE POSTS, no less. Luckily it seems that some carnivore-centric content is starting to filter in so it's not a lost cause yet...

Umm. . . when I say what comes next, maybe their gakky algorithm will make slightly more sense. See, during the Monthly Reset (tm), my feed would get flooded with terrible churches from across the US. Now, initially, I would do as you are: leave a reaction, a snarky, angry comment, report and block (some of em), and move on.

However, in Facebook's mind/algorithm ANY interaction whatsoever is "proof" to them that you like that content. There's nothing in their "let's show you more of this" programming that differentiates a thumbs up from an angry face from a sad face from a laughing face. And there's nothing that differentiates a telling off comment from an encouraging one.

so now, I simply either report any and all "sponsored" ads as spam, scams, or some other suitable thing as that one action does not trigger the "you must like this stuff so we'll show you more" algorithm in Zuck-land.


So, TL;DR is this: if you don't want to see content, whether its pro-vegan stuff, PETA stuff or whatever, DO NOT INTERACT WITH IT IN ANY WAY

 Just Tony wrote:
Nothing about their algorithm makes sense. My feed is spammed by vegan propaganda posting, and I've made it abundantly clear how I feel about veganism. IN THOSE POSTS, no less. Luckily it seems that some carnivore-centric content is starting to filter in so it's not a lost cause yet...

I think I might have mentioned this previously, but back when I got married, I updated my status on Facebook and was immediately inundated with sponsored ads for dating sites.

And there's always the fun of buying something on Amazon and then being shown ads for that same thing for the next three months.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
so now, I simply either report any and all "sponsored" ads as spam, scams, or some other suitable thing as that one action does not trigger the "you must like this stuff so we'll show you more" algorithm in Zuck-land.

Given how many sponsored ads on Facebook these days are clearly scams, that's not an unreasonable approach. I've tried to stop being frustrated when reporting one of those incredibly obvious 'Our store is having to shut down and we're selling everything really cheap!' scams gets the standard 'Nup, this is fine' response from Facebook's system.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Overread wrote:
Oh its not had its day; many of us griping are still using it. However I think its clear that its not what was originally drew us to them and there ARE avenues for both the SM systems collapsing due to mismanagement and also for competition to rise up.

The stickier issue is that some platforms, like Twitter; also became really useful to governments and other powerful bodies. So SM sites being killed off is trickier than it might otherwise be. They have a lot of money and big names invested into them.

In a way they are like the banks of the internet. So interconnected its hard to crush them; but they very much can still crash and burn (in spectacular disastrous fashion I'm sure)

I wouldn't be too surprised to see more government regulation on social media in the future in an effort to combat the algorithm's control, pushed by the EU.

On inappropriate ads?

Constant hair replacement ads. Now, if aimed at my late Dad or my brother, both of whom are subject to male pattern baldness? They might get a sale.

Me? Notoriously thick hair (almost as thick as I am), and also very long and curly. I….i literally have no need at all for hair replacement. Every day I brush out more hair than my brother has on his bonce.

 Overread wrote:
The stickier issue is that some platforms, like Twitter; also became really useful to governments and other powerful bodies. So SM sites being killed off is trickier than it might otherwise be. They have a lot of money and big names invested into them.

Yes, its odd, surely a government will see the overhead of running a site like facebook as was is minimal if it allows them to snoop on cheerfully engaged citizens.

Ooh, I just experienced a fresh insult today!! So, over my morning breakfast, going through and clearing emails, notifications, and doing daily tasks on mobile games, I see a notification from FB that someone replied to a comment I left yesterday.

So, that's normal enough. I open the stupid app, click the notification thing to see the dropdown, and what do I see, but a fething ad embedded into the notifications window!! What fresh hell is this?!?

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Ooh, I just experienced a fresh insult today!! So, over my morning breakfast, going through and clearing emails, notifications, and doing daily tasks on mobile games, I see a notification from FB that someone replied to a comment I left yesterday.

So, that's normal enough. I open the stupid app, click the notification thing to see the dropdown, and what do I see, but a fething ad embedded into the notifications window!! What fresh hell is this?!?

It's called a bot, praise LLM for they will destroy social media.
Which is good.

It's not even bots - Facebook is literally pushing ads as notifications, now.

Steam started doing that a while back too, but at least it only notifies you when its things on your wishlist that are on sale rather than just anything

 Overread wrote:
Steam started doing that a while back too, but at least it only notifies you when its things on your wishlist that are on sale rather than just anything

That is very different IMO, and more akin to "back in stock" notifications.

 Haighus wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Steam started doing that a while back too, but at least it only notifies you when its things on your wishlist that are on sale rather than just anything

That is very different IMO, and more akin to "back in stock" notifications.

Yep, its the difference between a system helping you and a system helping itself (or rather its shareholders/managers )

 Overread wrote:

 Haighus wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Steam started doing that a while back too, but at least it only notifies you when its things on your wishlist that are on sale rather than just anything

That is very different IMO, and more akin to "back in stock" notifications.

Yep, its the difference between a system helping you and a system helping itself (or rather its shareholders/managers )

I think it is also about control. I can remove an item from the wishlist on Steam, and stop getting notifications. Can you do that for notification adds on FB? I doubt it (I ain't faffing around on FB to find out...).

Agree it is intended to help the latter though, although there is an issue where engakkification makes stuff obnoxious enough that people leave the platform, leading to a vicious cycle of more and more intrusive monetisation on a userbase that shrinks faster and faster. So very much a short-term strategy.

The latest, notifications every time a random site posts a video!

Oh boy, the newspaper I followed 10 years ago has a video up! I'd better drop everything and watch!

Now I am just getting notifications for things that normally just show up in a scrolling feed. I don’t want to be notified that a bunch of people like some other person’s post that I haven’t even looked at.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Now I am just getting notifications for things that normally just show up in a scrolling feed. I don’t want to be notified that a bunch of people like some other person’s post that I haven’t even looked at.

Meanwhile, I'm not getting notifications of new events from the groups I'm actually in.

I assume this is all to generate annoyance, which then causes people to go and find what they're looking for, thereby creating "engagement" according to the algorithm.

At least I got it to stop pushing random podcast clips to me. Sadly, they've been replaced by even more useless promoted posts.

Also, forgot to mention this at the time, but I recently had a bizarre experience with recovering my FB password. I got a new laptop a couple of months ago and, for whatever reason, my FB password hadn't been stored in either my MS profile or my Google password manager. I couldn't remember what it was so had to recover it. Not usually a major problem. I opted for a text message to the number registered to the account. It never arrived, despite multiple attempts. I did a bit of digging and apparently FB will only send an SMS to your phone if you're on one of 3 networks in the UK. I don't use any of the 3 (one of which was a random network I've never even heard of). This is insane. I've had tiny little one-man operations using the same sort of service without any restrictions.

Anyway, I'm still logged into my FB account on my old laptop, so I can use messenger to send the code, right? It's an option, so I go via that route. FB then tells me to install the Messenger app on my phone. I don't want Messenger on my phone, but if it'll get me access to FB again, fine. Except, of course, I need to register the new app to my account...which needs a password...which I don't have. Hey, that's OK, you can just send a message via Messenger and I'll pick it up on my other laptop, where I'm still logged in. Right? Hell no. That's not an option - has to be via the phone app.

Eventually I brute-forced it by trying a whole bunch of old passwords, but I've never encountered any site where it's so difficult to recover a password. It's like FB can't conceive of a user who doesn't have Messenger installed. Or hasn't heard of email.

Meanwhile Heroquest - how much freaking money do they pay Google to constantly put their ads on Youtube?

Angry Birds I understood, but Heroquest doesn't even advertise the game they have in their ads (or at least they didn't, I think they got taken to court over that and forced to actually code something). But seriously we live in this "meta age of super marketing smart algorithms" and yet can they market Warhammer or Video games or anything that might actually generate a click from me.


No just Heroquest...endless Heroquest

As in the classic board game HeroQuest HeroQuest?

I pay for YouTube premium, so I don’t see the ads.

Slipspace wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Now I am just getting notifications for things that normally just show up in a scrolling feed. I don’t want to be notified that a bunch of people like some other person’s post that I haven’t even looked at.

Meanwhile, I'm not getting notifications of new events from the groups I'm actually in.

I assume this is all to generate annoyance, which then causes people to go and find what they're looking for, thereby creating "engagement" according to the algorithm.

At least I got it to stop pushing random podcast clips to me. Sadly, they've been replaced by even more useless promoted posts.

Also, forgot to mention this at the time, but I recently had a bizarre experience with recovering my FB password. I got a new laptop a couple of months ago and, for whatever reason, my FB password hadn't been stored in either my MS profile or my Google password manager. I couldn't remember what it was so had to recover it. Not usually a major problem. I opted for a text message to the number registered to the account. It never arrived, despite multiple attempts. I did a bit of digging and apparently FB will only send an SMS to your phone if you're on one of 3 networks in the UK. I don't use any of the 3 (one of which was a random network I've never even heard of). This is insane. I've had tiny little one-man operations using the same sort of service without any restrictions.

Anyway, I'm still logged into my FB account on my old laptop, so I can use messenger to send the code, right? It's an option, so I go via that route. FB then tells me to install the Messenger app on my phone. I don't want Messenger on my phone, but if it'll get me access to FB again, fine. Except, of course, I need to register the new app to my account...which needs a password...which I don't have. Hey, that's OK, you can just send a message via Messenger and I'll pick it up on my other laptop, where I'm still logged in. Right? Hell no. That's not an option - has to be via the phone app.

Eventually I brute-forced it by trying a whole bunch of old passwords, but I've never encountered any site where it's so difficult to recover a password. It's like FB can't conceive of a user who doesn't have Messenger installed. Or hasn't heard of email.

Everybody seems to be making it harder to do anything to your account, I guess to make things more secure but it gets ridiculous.
Like the other week I noticed Ebay now allowed a landline number for their 2 Step Identification, that would make things so much easier for me, so I figure I just pop into my account and add a new phone number?
Nope, gotta send them a picture of myself and a copy of either my driving licence or passport first.
I don't have either so it's a no go anyways, but I'd be real uncomfortable with that sort of info just sitting in a database somewhere.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
As in the classic board game HeroQuest HeroQuest?

I pay for YouTube premium, so I don’t see the ads.

Ahh no I might be mixing up the names; but whatever that clickbait game is that shows ads where the character has to kill things to get level up numbers and then makes the "bad choice" to choose the number higher than them and loses and dies


Ahh its "Herowars"

Oh that drivel!

My latest bit of feed-related fun was FB inexplicably making every 2nd entry in my feed a different post from some movie trivia page that I don't follow and as far as I know I've never even looked at. It's done it before with other pages, but never quite this many of them all at once.

I get the whole idea of sharing stuff the algorithm thinks I might like, but multiple posts from pages you don't follow is just annoying. If you don't engage with the first one, there seems little point in displaying more from the same source.

Surprised an enterprising government that wants to monitor its citizens doesn't do a stripped down friends feed facebook version. Since the company is spying on me I would swap to a government if it meant I didn't get all the spam and random stuff...