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Why Facebook Will Never Fix Facebook

buzzfeednews.com

58 pointslongdefeat24 comments

There's something ironic about Buzzfeed advocating for content distribution reforms on Facebook. Buzzfeed owes its entire existence to gaming Facebook's engagement algorithm via clickbait.

What if the fix Buzzfeed is asking for involves less distribution for outlets like Buzzfeed? I'd support that.

The irony isn’t lost on me, but it does not mean the article is wrong in some way because it is published by Buzzfeed News.

If anything, I would be inclined to trust Buzzfeed’s expertise in garnering views, clicks and ad revenue from Facebook when it comes to them criticizing the system they thrive in.

Additionally, if those changes drive less traffic to Buzzfeed, it will likely hurt publishers across the board and they will all have to change to survive. Perhaps that could be in the general best interest.

I agree it's not wrong. While this article is light on specific proposals, I would likely agree with the author on many reforms.

But if those reforms actually happen, I bet the executive team at Buzzfeed won't be happy

Buzzfeed has already made moves to be less dependent on Facebook traffic, by having its own app, and video content not only YouTube but Netflix too.

Less distribution for outlets like Buzzfeed already happened. Facebook has cut reach to pages so badly of late that even boosting posts hardly gets any of the virality of yesteryear. Nowadays if your post doesn't get people clicking the share button found on the Facebook post, it's not gonna get very far.

Perhaps this shouldn’t come as a surprise. Facebook, after all, is a platform historically powered by prioritizing and rewarding a very simplistic idea of user engagement. You react to something, or you don’t. And if you do, you’ll see more of the same.

This again. It's another variant on the themes I discuss in "Is there an actual Facebook crisis, or media narrative about Facebook crisis?" https://jakeseliger.com/2018/11/14/is-there-an-actual-facebo.... Facebook will change when users quit or dramatically cut back using it. Until then, actual users are telling Facebook, "Full steam ahead."

I don't agree. Facebook has to make changes given the risk of regulation, reputational risk, recruiting challenges, and the mismatch in their own self-professed mission.

We can debate if the change will be substantial enough to truly change things (I'm doubtful), but they have already made changes due to this media coverage (hiring more content moderators as just one example).

Throughout history, media has always had to weigh the tradeoffs of informing people vs engaging people. Yellow journalism in the US was an example of when the engagement imperative overwhelmed the informing imperative, and the issues did lead to changes in media. Facebook is going through this same journey (though painfully and slowly).

The users are not the only driver of change. Government regulation is very likely to happen at this point, in both the US and the EU.

Content regulation is very unlikely in the US given the Court’s near-absolutist First Amendment jurisprudence. Regulation of advertising and privacy is more plausible, but something like the GDPR is a constitutional and political non-starter in America.

GDPR comprises many facets many of which are completely constitutional.

And it maybe a political non-starter federally but all it takes is a few states in particular New York and California to impose restrictions and you will have the same effect.

Especially considering Facebook is based in California, which is controlled by the Democratic party. Many people in that party blame Facebook for helping Trump win the 2016 election.

> Until then, actual users are telling Facebook, "Full steam ahead."

Are they? U.S. Facebook traffic fell nearly 50% over the last two years.[1]

Yes, they've got other properties cushioning the fall. But Yahoo! had lots of other properties, too.

[1] https://market-intelligence.io/analysis/shakeup-in-top-five-...

One of the things that protects a business from political action is a large group of stakeholders who care. Facebook's problem is not that their users are entirely abandoning the platform, but that their users no longer care enough to defend them.

What if Facebook is exploiting the same weaknesses that cigarette companies or drug dealers or casinos do? Have you ever walked into a casino and seen truly sad people whiling away their time and money? Have you ever walked past a homeless heroin addict on the street? You might argue that those people have revealed their preferences, but to me it appears that they are trapped in addictive cycle reinforced by unscrupulous predators. That billions of people might be trapped in such an addictive cycle that feeds them intellectual poison is at least cause for alarm if not a full-on crisis.

I don't understand why Facebook is being singled out here.

Because the underlying issue is time spent on the internet as a whole. Each of the negatives that can be attributed to Facebook apply equally to sites like Youtube, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter etc. And ultimately Facebook is just a website that exposes humanities's neuroses and problems to itself.

And I still love the hypocrisy of this coming from Buzzfeed whose entire existence centres around driving traffic through jealousy, fake news, clickbait etc.

> I don't understand why Facebook is being singled out here.

From where I sit, they're not. Facebook is the canary in the coal mine because of its current outsized influence, but you can find similar pieces about all of the services you mentioned.

Here's an example, but I ran across a bunch more just looking for this one: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/youtube-for-kids-videos-prob...

The real question is: What is the fix? People want social networks but they are opposed to giving their data away or paying for the service. How does a company survive without revenue?

The least path of resistance is giving the service free to users and selling their data. The only fix comes from the users, not Facebook, and that's to stop using the service. Facebook will continue to monetize the user's data as part of their business model. There is no fix from their side.

Do we know people wouldn’t want to pay? I know Facebook never asked me if I would. People have a track record of paying for services like television. They might pay for social networks if given a chance. Charge me two dollars a month, make all the creepy spying illegal, and the remnants of Facebook are useful (staying connected to friends, etc.).

There's also probably a lack of dogfooding. "Oh yeah sure it's a good idea to publically display people's likes/comments/everything..."

Not to say they haven't also been corrupt to increase engagement because they have...

Interestingly, the page <title> is different: "Why Mark Zuckerberg Can't Fix Facebook".

huh? facebook isn’t broken. it’s a monetization platform, not a force for good. they will DTRT to keep money rolling in. this talk about addictive patterns is a sideshow.

Tldr: the incentives that govern the platform (gamifying and monetizing attention, as well as prioritizing clicks, shares, ads, and money over quality of information) will largely remain the same.

Thank you for the tl;dr. It makes sense that the forces applying to Facebook are largely economic ones.

I wonder if someone has attempted a first-principles estimate of the cost per user of running a site with similar levels of interaction as Facebook.

Ignoring costs for software development, media hosting, and moderation (none of which are trivial), would it be possible to support just basic text-based social networking with an income stream based solely on displaying unpersonalised ads (and without manipulating which content gets shown to users)?

I'm imagining a federated social network, but maybe there are cost savings if you have effectively a monopoly and don't have to interoperate with other sites.

Except this isn't true at all.

Facebook recently changed their algorithm to deliberately focus on the quality of engagement.

It had a material effect on marketers and news organisations so it was pretty significant.

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