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Comment by krushing | Hacker News Reader

Why not modify Facebook's News Feed to promote critical thinking, philosophy, self-reliance, resilience, tempered consumerism and practical ways to learn new skills?

You have the world's largest television and the tangible ability to promote powerful, positive ideas over mere distractions. Your goal shouldn't be to digitize the tabloid aisle and put it on my forever buzzing handheld computer.

All the clickbait, fake stories, trolling, mindless advertisements, contrarian articles, political hyperbolic narratives and conspiracy theories are analogous to a lot of other wasteful pursuits of thinking and existing that are perfectly acceptable by today's culture.

Connect the world in uplifting ways. Cater to our higher ideals not our base emotions.

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Consider the audience. This would be like replacing Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills with Masterpiece Theatre. The folks who tuned in for the trash would not stick around to be enlightened, they'd just change the channel.

Agreed.

I would also add there are far better channels to get intellectually stimulating material than FB and their news feeds.

I've tried multiple times to try and set up my FB news feed to be more centered on technology and development news. Unless I was really diligent, it was just turn back into gossip and trash within a few months. I just gave up and sought out other avenues for this kind of news.

I think you'd be surprised. It's not an "us vs them" situation, most of us have some frivolous outlet to go along with our real interests. I skim trashy magazines when they are around, and I watch the latest blockbusters each summer.

None of this stops me from also watching 'prestige television' or keeping up-to-date with current events. People like Jon Stewart and Jon Oliver have managed to bridge the divide between news and entertainment, and I don't see why social media should be any different.

> People like Jon Stewart and Jon Oliver have managed to bridge the divide between news and entertainment

I don't think those are good examples for escapades outside our bubbles, as they are decidedly left-leaning, with a left-leaning viewpoint on the issues they cover, and for mostly a left-leaning audience.

Fair point. I don't mean to say that these comedians help escape the content bubble. But at the very least their longevity (along with Colbert, whose ratings have actually improved as he has become more political) shows that you can provide something reasonably informative in a funny, unconventional package. I just don't buy the argument that large swaths of the population are only satiated by 'trash' like Real Housewives or FB clickbait and would never consume something more challenging if it were presented to them.

To what channel, exactly?

A Breitbart social network, maybe, if it has to come to that

For a product change that massive and anti-user-desires, you're kidding yourself if you think there wouldn't be a million challengers ready to fill that role. Hell, it could be as simple as people using other successful social networks more (Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram), and they'd sure as hell capitalize on the void left by Facebook by introducing features that bring them closer to providing the activity Facebook was pushing away.

Politics is much more appealing. It's what drive power hungry people. Mark have money, have some power, makes an impact with his decisions. Politics gives access to much more power. Influencing media and news does this as well. Such power can be used to change election results, start riots, force your own agendas and control thinking stream of masses.

The Netherlands has three publicly funded television stations and a handful of Dutch language commercial channels.

The publicly funded channels have been showing brain dead game shows and sports while arguing that if they did not do this, the zombies^Wviewers would be lost to the commercial channels.

Perhaps that's Facebooks defence here. ;-)

Because the only metric that matters is engagement, and getting bombarded with opposing arguments to what you believe and deeply care about doesn't improve it. For some people, sure, that'd work, but sadly, not for most.

Because money.

Oh please, just making 10% of the ads something educational would be so great :( I never understood why TV channels have all these dumb shows where they could make us learn so many interesting things.

Creating educational, engaging content is difficult. Ergo, expensive. I'd expect Reality TV to make an excellent ROI, as it diminishes the need for actors and writers (although not completely, mind you), while being engaging and gripping. Being mind-numbing does not even factor in that equation.

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